This Thing That Happened

It´s not that I don´t like maps, I just can´t stand to be seen looking at a map in public. Maybe I´m prideful, maybe I ascribe too heavily to the gender role that suggests that men should be good at navigating. I really don´t know. But regardless of the reasons I committed my route to memory, grabbed my phone and a little cash, and was out the door. My goal for the day was to walk to La Cancha, the largest outdoor market in South America (dare I say the entire Americas). It was a good 20 blocks away through a somewhat complex system of turns and twists but me being the sharp nugget that I am I had the whole area memorized pretty thoroughly...

...after about 3 blocks I was thoroughly lost. Okay I wasn´t lost... come on... no I just wasn´t entirely sure I was going in the right direction. I was pretty sure I was heading west/southwest but the roads kept veering. Damn roads... they looked pretty straight on the map.

I don´t know how, it was something quite similar to Wendy and the boys making it to Neverland, but suddenly I rounded a corner and Bam! there it was, in all its congested glory. LA CANCHA!

I´m not going to waste time trying to describe how big this market is. Just imagine something stupidly big, like the size of the Enterprise, and then double that and you´re probably close. It´s big. I spent 2 or 3 hours just walking... just walking from end to end and then back and then through and then around and then through again. They sell new bikes, and then next to them they sell giant barrells, and then next to them they sell shoes, and then next to them they sell soap, and then next to them they sell puppies, and then next to them they sell picture frames, and then next to them they sell spaghetti scoopers, and then next to them they sell butchered goats, and then next to them.... well... you probably get the idea. The range of smells alone was enough to make me feel like I had traveled to another planet. There was just so so much crammed together, so much sweat and soda and blood and dish water and HUMANITY! As I walked between the stalls I offered up every part of me that wanted to recoil in delicate sensitivity and told myself, ¨this is what the world is like, this is how people live who aren´t like you.¨ It literally took my breath.

On my way out I was just reemerging from La Cancha and pointed towards the direction of home when the darndest thing happened. It was crowded, as I´ve already said, and I was walking in something of a single file line with cars passing me on the right and a row of vendors on my left when suddenly the man walking in front of me abruptly turned around. At first I thought he had forgotten something and just wanted to walk in the opposite direction, but as I made to squeeze by him he suddenly put his shoulder into my chest just as another man came up behind me and did the same to my back. There I was, in something of a gringo sandwich, and quickly trying to figure out what was going on. After only a brief moment it was over, and the man who had turned around brushed passed me and began to move on. I hadn´t felt a thing, but I knew something was wrong. Quickly I reached into my left pocket and sure enough, the space where my phone had been was now completly empty. It was gone.

At this point in the story I grow a little embarassed, because there´s a ton of things I would say I would do in this kind of situation, and then there is the thing I actually did. Without another thought I spun around and grabbed the guy who had just brushed past me. I wrapped my left arm around his neck and shoulders and grabbed his right arm with mine, and in perfectly loud English said to him, ¨Hey! Give me back my phone!¨

The man twisted around in my arms and gave me a look of utter surprise. His buddy, who was right behind him looked at me and said in Spanish, ¨that guy, that guy over there¨ and pointed to a third man who was walking away. I almost fell for it. I was so confused and disoriented that I thought maybe it had been passed off and this other guy did have my phone. But then I looked down at the man´s hands who I was still holding on to. His right hand, of which I had grabbed with my right hand, was balled up in a fist, but his left hand was concealed underneath a jacket that he had drapped over it. And it was then that I knew without a doubt he still had my phone. Again I said to him, still in English because my brain couldn´t catch up, ¨Hey man! Give me back my phone!¨ This whole time I´m pretty sure I was smiling at the ridiculousness of it all, but I think perhaps he mistook my goofy grin for the look of a maniacle mad man because ever so slowly he raised up his left hand, almost as though it were and offering, and there, clasped tightly in his hot little hand, was my phone.

I grabbed it out of his hand and as if that were the signal the two men tore off running in the opposite direction. I stood there in the middle of the street holding my phone as I watched the two men run away. For a second I wondered what I was supposed to do, I literally thought to myself, ¨Okay, what is culturally appropriate right now?¨ I thought about running after them but I didn´t really know why, I mean, I already had my phone, I thought about yelling for someone to stop them but I didn´t really want them to get caught, because that would probably mean their lives would be in danger (mob justice is swift here, I´m serious) so i just stood there surpressing a laugh. By now a small group had formed around me of curious and confused onlookers who were wondering why I had just stolen what was apparently that guys phone and then convinced him to run away. I took my phone back out of my pocket and said to the crowd, ¨MY phone¨ and the realization struck them all instantly.

I left the group gasping and chatting amongst themselves and continued on home, so completely pumped by what had just happened. I felt like a freaking superhero! In my head I replayed the scene where the guy had come at me with a knife and I had deflected it with my super-strong wrist guards and then tossed him into a vegetable cart. Then I recalled doing a backflip over the guy behind me and knocking his legs out from under him. I came to when I realized that in reality, it was just two guys who were trying to make some easy money who probably had family´s of their own to feed.

If I had been thinking would I have done something different? Yeah. Probably. Did it work out? Fortunately it did, at least for me anyway. Do I wish I could have known those guys? That I could have given them something for their efforts? Actually, yeah... I kinda do... I kinda do...


If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. - The Bible (somewhere)