Anoche

Last night I went out for dinner with some friends at Cafe Moliendo, which is a small Columbian restaurant near my place. It serves the BEST guacamole I have ever tasted and is probably my favorite place to eat here. Anyway, we were just sitting around laughing and talking when we heard a "boom!" outside. Now, if anyone has ever been to a Latin American country (or probably any developing country, I`m willing to bet), "booms" are everyday occurances, between the cars backfiring, fireworks and firecrackers. The first few days, you duck everytime you hear something, thinking someone is taking aim at your head, but after awhile you just kind of get used to it, and it fades into the background noise with the honking horns and the Spanish pop music. At any rate, no one really paid the sound much attention. There was a pause, and then conversation resumed. Until the owner for Moliendo jumped up and ran to the door. We all looked up to see some guy jumping around on one leg with blood pouring out. For someone who had just gotten shot, he was pretty calm (or perhaps drunk). He wasn`t angry, and he wasn`t panicking. He calmly jumped down the street, leaving a trail of blood behind him. It was quite strange. Eventually an ambulance came and loaded him up, and took him away. We couldn`t figure out if he accidentally shot himself, or if one of his friends accidentally shot him. It had to have been an accident, since there was no anger, no yelling, no confrontation. At any rate, for some reason, I`m not in any shock or surprise over the incident, which scares me a little. My friends and I were like, "Oh, some guy just got shot outside of Moliendo while we were having dinner...just another day in the life." It seemed like not really a big deal, and that`s how we acted. But if someone even fired a GUN within a block radius of me in Canada, I`m sure I would be soiling my drawers! It`s so strange how easily you slip into the mindset of other cultures, where it`s not a huge deal if someone gets SHOT within eyesight of you. To be honest, we were more enthralled with all the blood afterwards, than concerned about the man. How callous! I amaze myself sometimes. And not in a good way.