I did not become a Lackawanna County volunteer sheriff’s deputy to make friends. And by the way, I haven’t.

Usually our blogging consists of interesting anecdotes or maybe a humorous poem written about one’s bathroom. However, this one is more serious. Not that this is a huge deal… but I would like to share with all of our subscribers that Thursday night I, Patricio, was mugged.

Okay, the story…

I traveled to visit our friend Ryan in May Pen. He is working in his community on a football (soccer) field and community center. This weekend was supposed to kickoff the retaining wall for the field. So naturally he called Peace Corps Jamaica’s resident concrete expert. I went down to see what I could do to help out. Ryan is getting ready to move into a new place, so when I arrived in May Pen, I met Ryan and accompanied him to meet with Ann the Wonderful, our PC Safety and Security officer, who was in town to inspect Ryan’s new abode. After viewing Ryan’s new digs, we went with Ann to visit Tiff-Tiff at her site. By the time we returned to Ryan's, it was around 8:00. As Ann pulled away, Ryan and I realized we were locked out of his house. Having nowhere else to go and feeling some hunger pains we traveled back into town to get some grub. After a quick bite, we caught a taxi back to his street and were dropped off at the bottom of his hill. When I say the bottom of the hill, I mean we were less than ¼ mile from his house. About halfway up the hill a man with a bandana wrapped around his face jumped out of the bushes and demanded our phones and wallets. Ryan emphatically told the man we had no money or phones, but I had just received a text message and was holding my phone in my hand… with all the buttons and screen lit up. I couldn’t really say I didn’t have a phone so I threw the phone to the other side of the street. I forgot to add that he had his shirt over his hand and it looked as if he was holding a gun. This proved to be a pretty scary moment as it would not be that far of a stretch to think a mugger in May Pen would hold you up with a gun. Well the man picked up my phone and demanded what was in our pockets. When he went down to pick up my phone his ‘gun’ looked a bit suspect. When I took two bills out of my pocket I wadded them up separately and threw them down hoping he would try to pick both up at the same time. My thinking was if both hands were occupied Ryan or I or both would have a chance to tackle the man or punt his face. Anyway, he carefully picked up the cash and at that point we saw that he had just been using the handle of a knife to pose as his gun. Which was immaterial as in hindsight, we did not need to get into a knife fight over less than $40 US. Our mugger took off back into the bushes and we tried to call the police on Ryan’s phone. When the police did not answer we walked back down the street to catch a taxi to the police station. When we arrived at the corner we saw our assailant. I yelled at him, threw a rock, and decided to give chase. We lost him around a corner but were able to flag down a police jeep. The body armor clad police complete with their assault rifles took us around the area in search of our mugger. No luck. We spent the next couple hours filling out a report at the police station. Ann turned around and came back to meet us at the station and took us home and made sure we went inside.

So that’s the play-by-play. At this point, there are just a lot of coulda, woulda, shouldas going through my head. I am a bit disappointed that I got held up, especially considering that we gave up two years of our lives to help better his country. WTF? I realize that there are dirtbags everywhere but getting robbed definitely makes it hard to let ones guard down again, which happens to be pretty necessary to get along here. I am super glad that Erin was not there. I would be significantly more upset if she had been subjected to that situation. Sorry Ryan, but I am glad it was you that was held up with me. It is hard enough to come into a new country, new culture, and adjust/acclimate/assimilate without a mugging experience in the back of your mind. It is especially bad right now because I happen to be quite sick. I feel better though being back at our own place and after eating some of Erin’s double-dipped French toast.