the day after i was mugged

I wrote the following journal entry the day after Zander and I were mugged at knife-point in Quito on our first day in Ecuador. Please know that it may contain triggers. Quito is a beautiful city filled with beautiful people. Bad things can happen anywhere. 

Every time I close my eyes, I see one of two things. In the first, the man with the knife stabs Zander in the shoulder. I scream and rush at him. But before I can knock the knife away, he stabs Zan again. The guy runs away with our belongings, and I lay screaming "Help!" in Spanish (and the vision pauses for a second as I confirm in my head - is "alto" help or is it stop? Maybe "ayuda" is help... or is that stop?).

In the second, I stop the guy. Every time, I use a different method to stop him. All my anger builds like a water balloon until it finally bursts, and I punch him in the face, knocking him over and the knife away. I really do punch him straight in the face, and it's so real that when I open my eyes I'm shaking my hand out, like that really stung. Other times I bargain with him. Spanish flows easily as I convince him Zan's designer sunglasses are cheap knockoffs, and it's mine that he wants - the ones I really bought on the side of the street earlier that day for $7.

But I did none of those things.

What really happened was that a guy - a scrawny punk no more than 20 years old - rounded the corner and lifted his shirt slightly enough that I saw where the sheath of the knife met his dingy boxers. He pulled out the knife - it blindingly glinted in the bright sun at that crazy altitude. He erratically imitated stabbing Zander in an up-and-down motion, both hands on the handle like he was going to jab him in his skull over and over, despite the six or eight or even foot height difference between them. He did all this while demanding our cameras and cash and Zan's sunglasses in something like broken English.

Instead of all the things I think I could have done when I close my eyes, when the silver of the 4 or 5 inch blade neared Zan's chest, and the guy, trembling (I wondered, is he drunk?), yelled again for our things now, is that I removed the memory card from my camera and slid it into my pocket, without moving at all.

I don't know why I did that, but I know my thought was - you're not getting my pictures, you bastard, and that somehow that felt like the only control I had, and that the only other thing in my head was a hope that telepathy works and that Zander could hear my silent plea to please oh please don't take on a man with a knife.

And then Zan babbled. He talked and he talked: What do you mean? What does that mean? I don't speak Spanish he said. He stalled and bought time; another family or more tourists would come along any second now. But as soon as that knife got too close, he handed over his DSLR and his sunglasses.

And then I waited because I was next.

Before he reached me, as I removed the camera strap from my neck, a local man screamed and came running, his arms outstretched. Everything happened in an instant. The guy sprinted into the woods, Zan lunged after him, and the older Ecuadorian man went on the chase. Zan and I locked eyes and got the hell out of there.

Three minutes later and 100 yards from police officers, as Zan and I took the steps down the steep pathway two at a time, I looked up and noticed a man watching me too closely. He was coming up the stairs in my direction, pretending to talk into a cell phone. I cautiously said to Zan, who was a few feet in front of me, that I was going to cross the street. I crossed, and the man crossed with me, closing the distance between us. I crossed back, and he met me on the sidewalk.

He demanded my things and threw his fists up in my face like he was imitating something he'd seen in a bad American movie. And I thought, Really? Is that all you brought? Because after facing a knife and being filled with anger I hadn't yet even processed, it felt laughable.

He grabbed me, and I don't remember screaming, but my throat was sore later and police officers came running. As he lunged for my camera, I threw it on the ground behind me and fell with it - I don't know if he pushed me or I threw myself there, too. Zan got a hold of the material of his shirt, but he wriggled free and he, too, went running out of sight.

Shell-shocked, we climbed down the remaining stairs and stepped into the broad expanse of a public square. We hailed a taxi to a mall to buy a replacement charger for Zan's phone, the next thing on our to-do list.

I'm okay, except when I close my eyes.


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**El Panecillo, a statue of the Virgin Mary at the highest point in Quito, is the best view point in the city. There are two ways to get there: a taxi or walking up the "trail" - a steep set of steps straight up the mountain. Tourists are discouraged from taking the latter route. There's a sign on the side of a building on the path that says it is a robbery zone. We were warned by locals as we climbed the stairs, and we saw the sign. We made the decision to continue to take that path. I did not address this because it's irrelevant and was our decision to make (and does not justify the crime). We met a couple our age a few days later who had climbed all the way to the statue on the same day, less than an hour earlier than we had without incident. I share this information in the hopes that if you visit Quito you can make the choice that is best for you.