Que Será, Será

I think yesterday when I was robbed proved to make the quote I have in my blog truer than ever.  My body literally collided with the the earth.  Yesh and I bore witness.  We grappled with the limitless kindness and the bottomless cruelty of humankind. 

Let's start at the beginning.  Yesh and I went to Valparaíso for the day because neither of us had class, and neither of us had been there yet.  We had been walking the winding streets enjoying the graffiti, scenery, and colorful houses all afternoon when we decided that we wanted to sit down for a minute on a bench at a park.  I took off my backpack and put it on my lap with my arms over it. We were sitting there not even for 5 minutes when a man came up, pushed down, and yanked the bag out of my arms.  I stood up and took about two steps, slipped, and fell.  Thank you Tom's Shoes, for not having the least bit of tread.  This is the part where my body collided with the earth, we bore witness, and we grappled with the bottomless cruelty of humankind.

And then we grappled with the limitless kindness of humankind.  Not two seconds after the man stole my bag, there was a woman on the phone with the police.  When she got off the phone with the police, she waited with us.  Her daughters picked us flowers to cheer us up.  When she saw police walking by on the sidewalk about a minute later, she ran over and got them.  She told them what happened and they went to see if they could find the guy (obviously in vain).  She waited with us while the police went to look for the guy and made small talk (who says Chileans can't do it?!). 

When the police came back, they obviously said they didn't find him.  They asked me what I had in my bag and how much things were worth.  There wasn't really anything of great value.  The backpack itself was even getting pretty beat up.  There were small holes starting in the bottom.  Here is the complete list of what was stolen:

Black Old Navy Zip-up Hoodie from Megan
35mm camera
Bip card (with about 300 pesos on it, so not enough for a ride anywhere)
My phone (with about 100 pesos on it, so no enough to make a call)
Pomegranate Burt's Bees lip balm
Rice with veggies
Home made honey roasted peanuts
Blue and black scarf from Spain (at least it wasn't the black and yellow one!)
Wallet with about 1000 pesos in change and my credit card
Bracelet I bought in Pomaire (which you can find everywhere here)
Return ticket to get back to Santiago


The police told me a couple of things.  First, since I didn't claim anything when I came into the country, they couldn't really do anything about getting my stuff back.  (I wasn't expecting them to be able to do anything anyway, but that is a dumb rule to have.)  Second, it would take about 6-8 months to process a report if I wanted to file one.  Neither of these things was that big of a deal because I was not expecting to be able to do anything. 

I at least got to practice my Spanish hardcore trying to talk to the police about all of this.

Yesh decided that we needed to have a drink, so we found a nice little pub and had a few drinks.  I asked one of the bartenders if we could pay with a credit card (Yesh was not robbed, and thus picked up the tab).  He could not understand me.  He asked me to repeat myself about 3 times before he asked another bartender if he could understand me.  He understood me the first time.  I have never had problems with someone understanding me like that.  And it wasn't because what I was saying was wrong.

We make our way to the bus terminal stopping to buy empanadas and sopapillas, and stocking up on Super 8s and corte americano chips for the ride back to Santiago.  Once we made it back to Santiago, I called to cancel my credit card, and they said it hadn't been used yet.  Amazing.   Then, we obviously had to keep drinking.  So more drinks and dancing it was. 

All in all, things could have been so much worse.  I am just glad I didn't have anything of great value on me, and everything is replaceable.  Yesh was also very supportive, and once I got back into Santiago, my friends were all very helpful and supportive.  Thank you all!

Peace
Allison