alarms going off.

Yesterday my dear friend & fellow teacher, Kat, was robbed on a main street near a park in Quito at 5 p.m. I had gotten off the bus & said goodbye to her around 4:30 to pick up a package & lug it 8 km back home. I wasn't going to walk, but the traffic was bad, the weather was beautiful, & I had just bought a delicious pastry so I decided walking would be best. I got home around 6, met the other student teachers for trivia at 8, & Kat didn't seem a bit shaken. She referred to a robbery when she talking to her cousin & that's when I asked her what the was talking about:

Parque de Carolina, cerca Amazonas

Amazonas is one of the main roads, always jammed with carros, motos, taxis, bicicletas, & pedestrians. It runs by a mall, a park, a movie theater, & many other buildings & restaurants. At 5:00 pm she left to meet her friend for dinnner & as she walked toward her house on Amazonas two men parted for her & she said she immediately felt strange about it. Seconds later one had grabbed her, put a knife to her throat, & the other starting demanding & taking everything from her. She´s a little girl, very pretty, & could probably befriend the devil, but she said she just gave them everything then they told her to go away. As she told the story, her cousin told me that you have no choice but to give everything because otherwise you WILL get stabbed, shot, taken, whatever. At first I thought these were generic warnings given to tourists, but this is KAT! Strong, awesome, Kat. So the guys told her to go away & she stood there in shook, everything she´d lost running through her mind. A man on a bike apparently saw them take off with her stuff because he took off after the men & started yelling at the police ahead to stop them., they did, got the stolen goods back, slapped one of the guys for yelling rude Spanish slang at Kat & then LET THEM GO.  < Kat

I don't know if it is my love for Kat that's gotten me all shook up or the fact that I have been walking everywhere & acting all resilient & tough because I'm big & have a knife, but I am ready to leave Quito. The city could be beautiful, but the people are suffocating it & me. The buildings upon buildings, people grabbing you, no room to breathe outside...all of it. It is a city I suppose like most others, but it is still different here. I am paranoid everywhere, my heart beats quicker, I am suspicious of everyone,  &I am constantly putting my hand in my pockets & purse to make sure no one has stole my pancreas or meter or wallet. Today at school I decided to plan trips to the jungle, beach, small towns every weekend just to be able to breathe. Even my family here is pushing these boundaries that I have no control over. Yes, it is a cultural thing, but there is also universal respect for others, & grabbing someone, making catcalls, crimes all the time, the stares...there is no respect. It has definitely impacted my teaching & what I expect of my students. Yesterday they were disrespectful so I talked to the leaders in the group & made daily individual/class grades for being disrespectful to me & each other, so today was better in that respect.

Headed here this weekend to excape the scary> 
I just need to let my itchy legs get away, my poor mind needs room to roam, & then, hopefully, the classroom will seem less hostile without constant car alarms for a weekend. I am learning, though...this I know.