These mean streets

I’m no scaredy-cat.

I’ve driven through lakes of mud, and on the thin edge of perilous mountain cliffs. I’ve slept with scorpions. I’ve swayed on the 16th floor to swinging beat of an earthquake tremor. I’ve eaten blood sausage, cow’s leg soup, fried ants, and jungle rat. I’ve struggled with a mugger, and haggled with an armed robber. I’ve been searched, spied on, threatened, tear-gassed and shot at… on various occasions.

And even after I managed to "make it out alive" after eleven years in Guatemala, I decided to go back. Why? Because I’m no scaredy-cat.

But I have to confess that, lately, the city streets are giving me the willies. Not during the day. Not in the ritzier parts of the city. But here in Zone 1, where I work and live, I’d rather not be on the streets at night.

Crime has Guatemala City in a stranglehold. Movie theatres nearby no longer show movies after 7pm. Businesses close early, most restaurants shut their heavy metal doors by ten, even on the weekends. Hustling-and-bustling Sixth Avenue becomes a no-man’s land at night.

This evening, as a matter of fact, I had a “late” dinner with my friend Quimmy. We were well lost in conversation (politics, of course) when we realized that we were the last customers in the restaurant. It was just after 10pm.

While I accompanied her back home we both acknowledged how uneasy we feel walking in the city at night nowadays. There is a palpable sense of tension, aggressiveness, and menace on the street that neither of us could recall having felt before.

To be sure, Guatemala is a big city in a poor country, crime is nothing new here. You always had to keep your guard up. But now even being alert doesn’t help ease the feeling that you’re always one unlucky step away from being a victim.

Come to think of it, I guess that if you feel like that you already are a victim, of sorts.

After leaving Quimmy at her apartment I returned to my own sanctuary on the sixteenth floor. As I looked out on the city lights, all golden and white, I was moved yet again by its beauty. I just hope that someday soon the view from street-level will be as agreeable.