Så jag blev knivhakad i Colombia

Inlagd: 04/02/2019 | 2 april 2019

Redaktörens anmärkning: Jag vaklade på att komponera om detta länge sedan jag inte ville skjuta upp människor på Colombia eller upprätthålla myten om att faran lurar runt varje hörn. Som ni kan säga från mina inlägg här, här, här, och här gillar jag verkligen landet. Jag menar att det är fantastiskt. (Och det kommer att finnas många fler blogginlägg om hur bra det är.) Men jag bloggar om alla mina erfarenheter – bra eller dåligt – och den här historien är en bra lektion om resesäkerhet, vikten av att alltid följa lokala råd och vad som inträffar När du slutar göra det.

“Mår du bra?”

“Här. sätt dig.”

“Behöver du lite vatten?”

En växande folkmassa hade samlats runt mig och alla erbjöd hjälp i en eller annan form.

“Nej, nej, nej, jag tror att jag kommer att vara ok,” jag sade att vi vinkade bort dem. “Jag är bara lite bedövad.”

Min arm och rygg bankade medan jag försökte återfå min lugn. “Jag kommer verkligen att vara öm på morgonen,” tänkte jag.

”Kom, kom, kom. Vi insisterar, ”uttalade en tjej. Hon ledde mig tillbaka till gångvägen där en säkerhetsvakt gav mig sin stol. Jag satt ner.

“Vad heter du? Här är lite vatten. Finns det någon vi kan ringa? ”

“Jag kommer att bli bra. Jag kommer att ha det bra, ”svarade jag hela tiden.

Min arm bankade. ”Att få stansade suger,” sade jag till mig själv.

När jag återfick min lugn tog jag långsamt av jackan jag hade på mig. Jag var lika öm för alla snabba rörelser ändå. Jag behövde se hur dåliga blåmärkena var.

När jag gjorde det uppstod gisps från mängden.

Min vänstra arm och axel droppade av blod. Min skjorta blötläggs igenom.

“Skit”, sade jag när jag insåg vad som hade hänt. “Jag tror att jag bara blev knivhakad.”

***
Det finns en uppfattning om att Colombia är osäker, att faran i narkotikakriget är över, faran lurar runt de flesta hörn och du måste vara verkligen försiktig här.

Det är inte en helt oberättigad uppfattning. Små brott är extremt vanligt. Det 52-åriga inbördeskriget dödade 220 000 människor-även om detta antal tack och lov har minskat avsevärt sedan fredsavtalet 2016.

Medan du osannolikt kommer att sprängas, slumpmässigt skjutas, kidnappas eller ransomas av gerillor, är det oerhört troligt att du blir pickpocket eller rånad. Det fanns över 200 000 väpnade rån i Colombia förra året. Medan hårda brott har varit på nedgång, har småbrott och rån varit på uppgång.

Innan jag åkte till Colombia hörde jag otaliga berättelser om småstöld. När jag var där hörde jag ännu mer. En vän till mig hade rånats tre gånger, sista gången på vapen medan han var på sin metod för att träffa mig till middag. Lokalbefolkningen och expats berättade för mig exakt samma sak: rykten om småstöld är sanna, men om du håller ditt förnuft om dig, följ reglerna och blinkar inte dina värdesaker, kommer du att vara ok.

Det finns till och med ett lokalt uttryck om det: “ingen dar papaya” (ge inte papaya). I huvudsak betyder det att du inte borde ha något “sött” ute i det fria (en telefon, dator, klocka, etc.) som skulle göra dig till ett mål. Håll dina värdesaker dolda, ströva inte runt platser du inte bör på natten, blinka inte pengar runt, undvik att komma ut från nattlivsområden ensam på natten osv. Bara lägg: Sätt dig inte i en position där människor kan dra nytta av dig.

Jag följde sådana råd. Jag hade inte hörlurar offentligt. Jag tog inte ut min telefon om jag inte var i en grupp eller en restaurang, eller helt säker på att ingen annan var med. Jag tog precis tillräckligt med pengar för dagen när jag lämnade mitt vandrarhem. Jag varnade kompisar för att använda snygga modesmycken eller klockor när de besökte.

Men ju längre du är någonstans, desto mer blir du självbelåten.

När du ser lokalbefolkningen på sina telefoner i överbelastade områden, turister som totalt tusen dollar-kameror och ungdomar använder AirPods och Apple-klockor, börjar du tänka, “OK, under dagen är det inte så illa.”

Ju mer ingenting inträffar för dig, desto mer likgiltig får du.

Plötsligt går du ut ur ett kafé med din telefon utan att ens tro på det.

I dina händer är papaya.

Och någon vill ta det.

***
Det var nära solnedgången. Jag var på en upptagen gata i La Candelaria, det viktigaste turistområdet i Bogotá. Kaféet jag hade varit på stängde, så det var dags att hitta någonstans nytt. Jag bestämde mig för att gå till ett vandrarhem för att avsluta lite arbete och dra nytta av Happy Hour.

Jag hade varit i Bogotá i några dagar nu och njuter av en stad som de flesta komponerar. Det var ett överklagande till det. Även i turisthotningen i La Candelaria kändes det inte så gringofied som Medellín. Det kände den mest autentiska av alla de stora colombianska städerna jag hade besökt. Jag älskade det.

Jag lämnade caféet med min telefon och slutförde ett textmeddelande. Det hade glidit mitt sinne för att lägga bort det. Det var fortfarande lätt utanför, det fanns folkmassor runt och mycket säkerhet. Efter nästan sex veckor i Colombia hade jag blivit nöjd med omständigheter som detta.

”Vad kommer verkligen att hända? Jag kommer att bli bra.”

Tre steg ut genom dörren kände jag att någon städade mot mig. Först trodde jag att det varsomebody running past me up until I quickly realized that a guy was trying to take my phone out of my hand.

Fight or flight set in — and I fought.

“Get the fuck off me!” I yelled as I wrestled with him, keeping an iron grip on my phone. I tried pushing him away.

“Help, help, help!” I shouted into the air.

I keep in mind distinctly the confused look on his deal with as if he had expected an easy mark. That the phone would slip out of my hand and he’d be gone before anyone could catch him.

Without a word, he started punching my left arm, and I continued to resist.

“Gå av mig! Hjälp hjälp!”

We tussled in the street.

I kicked, I screamed, I blocked his punches.

The commotion triggered people to run toward us.

Unable to dislodge the phone from my hand, the mugger turned and ran.

***
After people assisted me sit down and the adrenaline used off, I got lightheaded. My ears rang. I had difficulty focusing for a few moments.

Blood was dripping with my soaked shirt.

“Fuck,” I stated looking at my arm and shoulder.

I tried to compose myself.

Having grown up surrounded by physicians and nurses, I ran with a quick “how bad is this” checklist in my mind.

I made a fist. I could feel my fingers. I could move my arm. “OK, I most likely don’t have nerve or muscle damage.”

I could breathe and was not coughing up blood. “Ok, I most likely don’t have a punctured lung.”

I could still walk and feel my toes.

My light-headedness dissipated.

“OK, there’s most likely not as well much major damage,” I thought.

Words I didn’t comprehend were spoken in Spanish. A doctor shown up and assisted clean and put pressure on my wounds. A young lady in the crowd who spoke English took my phone and voice-texted my only friend in Bogotá to let her know the situation.

As an ambulance would take as well long, the police, who numbered about a dozen by now, packed me onto the back of a truck and took me to a hospital, stopping web traffic on the method like I was an honored dignitary.

Using Google equate to communicate, the police inspected me in at the hospital. They took down as much information as they could, showed me a picture of the attacker (yes, that’s him!), and called my friend to update her about where I was.

As I waited to be seen by the doctors, the owner of my hostel showed up. After having taken my address, the cops had phoned up the hostel to let them know what occurred and she had rushed down.

The hospital personnel saw me quickly. (I suspect being a stabbed gringo got me quicker attention.)

We went into one of the examination rooms. My shirt came off, they cleaned my arm and back, and assessed the damage.

I had five wounds: two on my left arm, two on my shoulder, and one on my back, little cuts that broke the skin, with two appearing like they got into the muscle. If the knife had been longer, I would have been in serious trouble: one cut was right on my collar and another especially close to my spine.

When you believe of the term “stabbing,” you believe of a long blade, a single deep cut into the abdomen or back. You picture somebody with a extending knife being rolled into the hospital on a stretcher.

That was not the case for me. I had been, more colloquially correct, knifed.

Badly knifed.

But just knifed.

There was no blade extending from my gut or back. There would be no surgery. No deep lacerations.

The wounds wouldn’t need any more than antibiotics, stitches, and time to heal. Mycket tid. (How much time? This occurred at the end of January and it took two months for the bruising to go down.)

I was stitched up, taken for an X-ray to make sure I didn’t have a punctured lung, and needed to sit around for another six hours as they did a follow-up. My friend and hostel owner stayed a bit.

During that time, I booked a flight home. While my wounds weren’t serious and I could have stayed in Bogotá, I didn’t want to danger it. The hospital refused to give me antibiotics and, being a bit suspicious of their stitching job, I wished to get checked out back home while everything was still fresh. When I was leaving the hospital, I even had to ask them to cover my wounds. They were going to leave them exposed.

It’s better to be risk-free than sorry.

***
Looking back, would I have done anything differently?

It’s easy to say, “Why didn’t you just give him your phone?”

But it’s not as if he led with a weapon. had he done so, I obviously would have surrendered the phone. This kid (and it turned out he was just a kid of about 17) just tried to grab it from my hand, and anyone’s natural instinct would be to pull back.

If somebody stole your purse, took your computer while you were utilizing it, or tried to grab your watch, your initial, primal reaction wouldn’t be, “Oh well!” It would be, “Hey, give me back my stuff!”

And if that stuff were still connected to your hand, you’d pull back, shout for help, and hope the mugger would go away. especially when it’s still daytime and there are crowds around. You can’t always assume a mugger has a weapon.

Based on the information I had at the time, I don’t believe I would have done anything differently. Nature just set in.

Things could have been a lot worse: The knife could have been longer. He could have had a gun. I could have turned the wrong way, and that little blade could have hit a major artery or my neck. The knife was so little that I didn’t even feel it during the attack. A longer blade might have triggered me to recoil more and drop my phone. Jag vet inte. If he had been a better mugger, he would have kept running forward and I wouldn’t have been able to catch up as the forward motion made the phone leave my hand.

The permutations are endless.

This was also just a matter of being unlucky. A wrong time and wrong place situation. This could have occurred to me anywhere. You can be in the wrong place and the wrong time in a million locations and in a million situations.

Life is risk. You’re not in manage of what occurs to you the second you walk out the door. You believe you are. You believe you have a handle on the circumstance — but then you walk out of a café and get knifed. You get in a car that accidents or a helicopter that goes down, eat food that hospitalizes you, or, despite your finest health efforts, drop dead from a heart attack.

Anything can happen to you at any time.

We make plans as if we are in control.

But we’re not in manage of anything.

All we can do is manage our reaction and responses.

I truly like Bogotá. I truly like Colombia. The food was tasty and the scenery breathtaking. Throughout my go to there, people were inquisitive, friendly, and happy.

And when this happened, I marveled at all the people who assisted me, who stayed with me up until the police came, the many police officers who assisted me in numerous ways, the physicians who went to to me, the hostel owner who ended up being my translator, and my friend who drove an hour to be with me.

Everyone apologized. everyone understood this was what Colombia is understood for. They wished to let me know this was not Colombia. I believe they felt worse about the attack than I did.

But this experience reminded me of why you can’t get complacent. I provided papaya. I shouldn’t have had my phone out. When I left the cafe, I should have put it away. It didn’t matter the time of day. That’s the rule in Colombia. keep your valuables hidden. especially in Bogota, which does have a higher rate of petty crime than elsewhere in the country. I didn’t follow the advice.

And I got unlucky because of it. I’d been having my phone out as well often and, with each non-incident, I grew more and more relaxed. I kept dropping my guard down more.

What occurred was unlucky but it didn’t need to happen if I had complied with the rules.

This is why people always warned me to be careful.

Because you never know. You’re fine up until you aren’t.

That said, you’re still unlikely to have a problem. All those incidences I talked about? All involved people breaking the ironclad “No Dar Papaya” rule and either having something valuable our or walking alone late at night in areas they shouldn’t have. Don’t break the rule! This could have occurred to me anywhere in the world where I didn’t follow the security rules you’re supposed to that help you minimize risk.

But, also know, if you do get into trouble, Colombians will help you out. From my hostel owner to the cops to the people who sat with me when it occurred to the random guy in the hospital who provided me chocolate, it turns out, you can always depend upon the generosity of strangers. They made a harrowing experience a lot easier to deal with.

I’m not going to let this freak incident change my view of such an fantastic country. I’d go back to Colombia the exact same method I’d get in a car after a car accident. In fact, I was terribly upset to leave. I was having an fantastic time