Saved from Another Mugging

I went to my last guarderia and once again fell in love with the kids there. The children crawled all over me and we played some sort of circle game. In a not so private moment, I caught one using the bathroom. He enjoyed showing everyone that he made it on the toilet. A 5 year old child broke my heart when I learned that he wants to study, but his mom will not let him probably because she can not afford to have him go to school. Very sad...


Since the children did not create stool samples for us that day, I had to return today to pick them up. I had planned to go alone, but decided to bring Marie, an American medical student with me and I am so happy that I did. We labeled the samples, put them in a bag and then headed back the 25 minute walk to the clinic. However, along the way, 2 rather large guys, who most likely were not from Guatemala, approached us. I saw them coming and so I backed off, but they caught Marie and stood directly in front of her. I stood aways back. They told us in perfect English not to run because they had a gun. They also said that they wanted all of our money. Marie lied and said that she only had 2 Quetzales on her even though she had a ton of money for her trip to the Lake today. I didn´t see an easy way around them and so I tried to reason with them. I told them that we don´t have any money because we are volunteers at the clinic down the road. We don´t get paid for our work. We are carrying stool samples to check for parasites so that we can give the kids at the school their medicine. Marie backed me and held up our bag of stool and she also conveniently translated everything into easier words by pointing to the bag and telling them that this is the poo from the kids. I told them that we don´t have any time because we needed to get the poo to clinic quickly. I said, "It´s all for the children." A car passed us on the dirt road and the two guys just looked at each other and decided to just let us go. Maybe they thought we were either crazy or they really did care about the kids too. In the end, the poo saved us. I doubt they had a gun, but they did look rather large and intimidating enough to scare me.

By the way, I found out that one of Helga´s friends was returned today. The parents paid the requested amount and freed the girl. At least one is safe.