Life and Death in San Pedro

In some ways yesterday was just an average day in San Pedro... Andrew and I went about our daily routine in the hot and bustling city center; keeping relatively cool and removed in the MCC office. The following two events shook me up and caused me to reflect on what exactly IS an ordinary day in San Pedro, and reminded me once again that I'm not in Indiana anymore.

1. After over a month of not being able to meet up with my Spanish teacher, Veronica, we finally had a class yesterday afternoon. Because of my frequent traveling for work and her jam-packed schedule, it is rare that we are able to have class at all - hence my original purchase of 30 hours of classes stretching out over the span of 5 months now. I entered the school to find everything changed - new secretarial staff and the furniture rearranged. When Veronica arrived 10 minutes later I found out the reasons behind the changes and also why we hadn't been able to meet for so long. She told me that a month ago, during our usual class time and on a day when our class had been canceled because she had been unable to come, the school had been robbed and the owner of the school had been stabbed and killed at her desk. I had remained clueless to this tragic event mainly because I had left San Pedro for two weeks and hadn't read the papers. Sometimes I don't read the paper here just because it's often depressingly filled with news of tragic events that happen so often. This opens my eyes yet again not only to the violence that has become so commonplace, but also to the undercurrent of fear that people live with here. This is why most businesses have armed guards and why our apartment is surrounded by a huge wall topped with razor wire. Violence seems to go uninvestigated by the underpaid city police force.

Rumors are circulating that this seemingly random act of violence was not random after all, and actually instigated by someone connected with the school - some kind of personal vendetta. If so, is this kind of violence the Central American counterpart to the sue-happy culture of the U.S.? Maybe so, in a culture where the legal and political systems cannot be counted upon.

On a lighter note...
2. Later in the afternoon Andrew and I took the Ruta 7 bus to try and figure out where the route goes. We went past the Texaco station, one of the Universities, some fancy neighborhoods and some desolate looking ones. While stopped at a red light I saw a horse tied up to a fence next to a ditch - a familiar sight. The horse was licking what appeared to be a very new and very wet colt. My eyes traveled beyond the young one and saw long strands of afterbirth and red guck still hanging from the new mama's back end. This was not such a familiar sight for this city-born girl, and I stood up to watch the nature-show-worthy scene, along with the other right-side sitting passengers of the Ruta 7. Here we were, sitting and sweating it out on the dusty hot intersection and a scene of gross natural beauty was right there among the bustling traffic. I couldn't help feeling sad for this horse, having to give birth tied to a fence post in the San Pedro heat with no shade in sight. And more than a little worried that the newborn would eventually wander into oncoming traffic... but I guess these things have a way of working themselves out. I so often feel bad for animals around here, but life is just kind of rough. For everyone. Dogs and horses and chickens included.

Question: do I have more compassion for animals than people? I am reminded of a recent David Sedaris story in the New Yorker to the effect that similar sentiments are quite common - after Hurricane Katrina a lot of people sent money to help save trapped animals, not people. More questions to follow as this is getting obnoxiously long.