Bumps in the Night

Last Sunday something happened that reminded me of when I was in fourth grade. My family was in the living room watching Star Wars. Mom returned from checking something, pressed stop and told us to go to our rooms. I imagine we were a little upset at the abrupt interruption, but we went upstairs anyway. I shared the master bedroom with Amanda (who couldn't have been more than two years old). The room has a nice view of both the front and back yards because it has a big bay window. Something caught my attention in the window facing the front. Ours was a corner house and there was a car with it's left blinker on to turn into the sidestreet that runs beside the master bedroom. It wasn't turning, though. The person on the driver's side was very red, though I couldn't see any details. I don't remember any other people being outside, though my mom went out briefly and gave the driver a towel before returning to the house. I was transfixed because I knew something was very wrong. I remember feeling like the person needed help and no one was providing it. Eventually, paramedics or police came and took the person away, though I think I may have been ushered away from the window by then.

When watching the news later that night, I learned that the woman had been shot in front of our house. She had an abusive boyfriend who had followed her from Columbus to our neighborhood. She was turning down our little sidestreet because that was the entrance to the local police precinct office. The news said she was in critical condition, but like many tales of violence in violent neighborhoods, there was never any press coverage of it beyond that first mention.

As many of you know, my neighborhood was a bad one, the streets were gated shut in the 90's so that every street was a dead end. Criminals can't get away if it's all dead ends (of course, Domino's doesn't deliver either because they can't navigate the maze in less than 30 minutes). Anyway, there's a certain feeling of helplessness in a place like where I grew up because you potentially endanger yourself by going out to help someone. It feels very cowardly. So I am kinda proud of my mom for being brave enough to go out and bring the towel to the lady to help stop the bleeding.

In any case, I was folding laundry at home last Sunday night when I heard some suspicious noises outside. I thought I first heard some angry dog noises -- normal here because everyone has a "guard" dog so there are frequent standoffs and fights between them. When I heard the lady yelling for help, I figured she couldn't get her dog to stop fighting another one. Then the cries for help continued and were now of the horror flick type, but real. Despite the mosquito risk, I ventured outside to see what I could do. Sadly, I discovered that the voice was fairly distant and impossible to localize because of the echoes from the hills nearby. I got Dan and asked what we should do. Dan's answer was "It depends." If she's not a student, we can call 911; but if she is a student, we have to call the SGU security office to send out police/ambulance. By the time Dan came outside, the screaming had stopped, so there was no way to direct help. Ultimately, we'd slow any response by calling, having them come to us, then directing them to where I thought the screaming was coming from, so we didn't do anything. I had that horrible helpless feeling again. I finished folding, then started doing dishes. Around that time, I heard sirens, so had some hope that help was on its way to the voice in the night.

On Wednesday, I met with Maria to visit some farm animals with kids. While there, she asked if I had heard about the student robbed at machete-point on Sunday night. I said I hadn't heard ABOUT her, but had probably heard her. She was pretty horrified, but she didn't have much detail beyond that. I'm terribly out of the loop because I don't socialize much here and I just don't know how people hear about things. The university obviously doesn't put info about every student injury or incident up on their website, though there is usually a remarkably well-timed generic safety notice shortly after serious incidents. It wasn't until Friday that I heard any more details. Apparently, someone in my building knows the victim, a female student in Dan's class. She broke her arm a couple of weeks ago and had to shield it as she was attacked last Sunday. The attacker luckily didn't use the sharp end of the machete, but did beat her up pretty badly. When I described the person to Dan, he said he wondered why she had shown up with an eye patch in addition to the cast for the exam on Monday -- she took the exam on Monday!! Some people are really tough (and rumor is that make-up exams are wicked-hard, with a ludicrously high failure rate)! I was glad to hear that she took the exam, though, because that meant she was more ok than those screams had seemed to indicate. I had worried when they stopped.

Lest you think this is some especially vicious criminal going around with a machete, bear in mind that it is one of the most common tools I've seen around here. People here use a machete to trim the lawn, prepare food for their goats, get a snack out of a tree, widen roads, open cocoa pods, etc. I've seen 10 year old kids carrying machetes on the street. Our neighbors went camping with some local orphans as a cool outing, asked them to go get some firewood. They took a machete and returned with remarkable speed because it was a familiar tool and task. Though I keep an eye on every person I spy with a machete, I try to be discreet about it because they aren't evil, they're just on their way to work or something.

For those of you worried about my personal safety, the University does take measures to help protect students and spouses. The buses deliver students to their door after dusk. If the driver can't see you enter your home safely, the armed security guard who rides the bus after dusk will escort you to your door. It's a really nice feature generally because you're tired at night and don't want to walk down our pot-holey ankle-twisting not even dirt roads. Now I can see some of the other benefits as well. I'm usually home by dusk anyway because I'm hungry for dinner and Penny gets pretty fussy.

On a far more cheerful note, my friend Elizabeth had her baby on Wednesday -- puts me to shame because she went for 35 hours of labor with no pain meds. Sadly, after all that work, her steel-belted cervix just wouldn't permit Eliana through, so she had a c-section. Everyone is home and feeling good, though. We're almost through the mini-baby boom among my family and friends (one new cousin; three second cousins here, three to go; three new little friends). Whew, so many exciting little people to meet in our upcoming travels!