In a recent article, Al Jazeera reports on El Salvador’s alarming rate of 1 murder per hour.
Another article focuses on the recent transportation crisis caused by death threats to bus drivers.
Worth the read, as these are very accurate depictions of the current situation.
Colonia Miramonte woke up to the sound of gunfire, at around 08:00am local time (2 hours behind EST, or same as MT). This is an overall safe neighborhood, of which there aren’t many left in El Salvador. We count ourselves lucky, and go through life mostly unaffected by the pervasive gang violence that has metastasized to the very core of our little country.
image credit: http://www.ibtimes.com
Even though I never saw combat when I was in the U.S. Army, they did train me well, and the sound of gunfire still gets me on my feet and ready to react. So in less than 2 seconds I had rolled out of bed and was checking out the situation.
Apparently police officers were in pursuit of some criminal, firing warning shots along the way. In his efforts to evade capture, the presumed thief/gang member was jumping over walls, running through roofs, and at one point, through a neighbor’s back yard. It seems despite the commotion, he was successful and got away. As far as we can tell nobody was wounded during the incident. Thankfully.
image credit: http://www.nydailynews.com, CABEZAS / GETTY,
Two hours later life is back to normal in our little bubble: people are walking to work, the gentleman who drives by in a pickup truck selling vegetables already made his rounds, and I’m back in bed. Humans are nothing if not adaptable.
the404files.wordpress.com 