Worst. Robbers. Ever.

Last night Julio (fellow teacher and current homestay mate) and I were walking home  at 10 pm from a long Sunday of lesson planning. 10 pm in Cofradia is like 4am in the rest of the world. The streets are dark and empty and the only people who are out are drunk or homeless. So, Julio and I were walking along the “broadway of town” having a nice chat about the upcoming summer camp that we were preparing for when two small men in their early 20’s approached us. I was preparing my response of “gracias, pero no fumo( thank you but I don’t smoke),” my catchall response for all 20-something Honduran guys who approach me because the universal conversation starter with this demographic is always “want some weed?”.

These men, or boys really, however, were approaching us in a slightly more aggressive way than I was accustomed to, waving their hands in our face like members of the Wu Tang Clan. When the smaller one with the ill-formed moustache told us to put my verga (penis) to the floor, I realized that they were not in fact trying to sell us drugs, but rather were trying to rob us.

            Julio and I, emboldened by the fact that we had both of our laptops in our bags, possessions that in no way were we going to just hand on over to two little Honduran dudes, argued with them, trying to buy time, figure out what our game plan was and suss out whether or not the boys had weapons (an integral piece of the puzzle which would definitely have been a game-changer). The two guys held their hands in their shirts unconvincingly pretending to have knives and were trying to back us against the wall. I looked beyond their angry little faces and noticed that there were two “non-robber” women walking down the street. A very good sign. Having never been in a fight in my life, I opted for “flight” and slid past the larger of the two little men into the middle of the street to make us more visible. This caught them both off guard and they changed strategies and started to push Julio.

            Seeing these two little men push around my roommate, my caveman instinct suddenly kicked in, and I went into madman mode. I raised my green water canteen over my head as if it were a saber, moved toward them and started yelling insults at the top of my lungs. I had no intention of actually doing anything (I mean, a canteen….seriously?) but merely to attract attention to the situation in the hopes that some nice little lady would come out of her house and scrape us off the pavement if need be. Apparently this did the trick, though, because the big tough robbers held their hands in the air and scurried off down the street…. Babies.

            To Char, and any of my surrogate mothers out there who are reading this, I just want to let you know, if there was any indication of weaponry or even if these robbers were slightly built, I would most definitely not gone into caveman mode. I would have cooperated, handed over the goods and walked home safely. But my laptop is very dear to me, and these guys were so small, and they really just pissed me off. Yes I am a metrosexual theater kid, but I do have a bit of pride and masculinity. I don’t know where that untapped fury came from, or why it actually scared them. I attribute the success to my newly formed beard.