As a Venezuelan, I have always been sure that each of the inhabitants of this country has developed what I call a "sense of survival"; it is not something that we all wanted, but it is something that we all need.
I will touch on the subject as I relate an experience I had yesterday in my car, at 11:00 pm in Caracas, the most dangerous city in the world.
I was coming back from a friend's house late at night, when my Mitsubishi Lancer stopped obeying my orders and decided to slide on the wet pavement towards a sidewalk that was not far from me, about 20 kmp.
Boommm! That's when I felt the impact of my left front tire with the edge of the sidewalk.
Sense of survival:
Is there someone behind me?
Is there someone in front of me?
Do I see a motorcycle nearby?
In this city and at that time it was not very prudent to stay inside the car or even close to it. Once I had noticed that no one was near me (evading being a victim of a possible robbery or kidnapping), I proceeded to run straight to a bush where I could see my car and hide until a police officer or a transit officer arrived.
The street was completely empty. There were many light posts on the street, but as usual in this country, none had bulbs that worked. Approximately 15 minutes passed and it was then when I first saw the reflection of those blue and red lights, corresponding to the patrol of a security member in the area.
Sense of survival:
Will he be a real cop? It is common for criminals in this country to disguise themselves as policemen and pose as someone who wants to help you, when in reality they are accomplices with other people to plan the future robbery. Of course, do not rule out the possibility that the same policeman, who actually is a policeman, wants to rob you, too.
At that time I had no choice but to whistle as hard as I could to get the patrol's attention. I decided to take the risk.
One person got out of the truck, uniformed in orange and with the respective insignia of a road safety officer. Everything after that proceeded in a normal way. I had already caught a kind of confidence in that man of about 30 years. The paperwork was done, he asked me for my license and everything I needed and we started looking for cranes to take my car to my house, since it couldn’t move anymore because of the rupture of a "control arm."
It took about an hour and we still could not contact any crane service, another common thing in this country.
I lit a cigarette, offered one to the officer who was with me, and sat down on the ground to wait for a possible miraculous call that could rescue me at that time of night. However, everything that was happening seemed to be under control.
Finally, the officer managed to get the crane; it was a matter of waiting for it to arrive. It was then when the policeman told me that a very serious crash had occurred on the highway and that his companions requested him there urgently.
Sense of survival:
Will he leave me alone?
Without a doubt, what else could I expect from a Venezuelan transit officer?
The officer shook my hand, told me to hide in the bakery that was one block away and wait for the crane there. Unusual, right? Again, I had no choice but to stay alone in that street/alley/possible place of my death, and resigned myself to taking my first steps in the direction the officer indicated. I already knew those streets... by day. At night it was something completely different.
I took my first steps when I realized that I had been illuminated by the light of a vehicle coming towards me... A motorcycle, detail to the second.
Sense of survival:
Will it slow down?
How many people are on the bike?
The police already left?
I turned in the direction of where my car was and where the police patrol was supposed to be. And that's when I saw what would break my security in a millisecond.The patrol was starting.
Sense of survival:
RUNNN!
I accelerated at full speed, literally, as if I was running for my life. You are probably thinking, Was not that a very exaggerated reaction? Well no, the bike commanded by two people was parked next to my car that at that time was abandoned. One of the men got off.
Sense of survival:
Leave the car.
Turn to see if they are following you.
There is an alley ahead, run and seek refuge.
When I turned my head while I ran to see if they were following me, I had already lost the whole scenario of sight; a wall had been interposed between the subjects and my person.
I ran and ran. I worried about turning ahead and not slowing down at all in case they were following me.
I never turned to see my car... I turned around the corner that was farther ahead to take refuge and to hide as soon as possible. After a length of about 200 meters, my smoker's lungs collapsed and I decided to kneel on stairs that seemed to be from a house.
I turned and I did not see anyone. I was relatively safe. I sat on the set of five steps I had found and breathed deeply.
“Excuse me, what are you doing here?” I heard in my left ear a distance too close for my taste. I jumped from the stairs and stood up, feeling like I almost had a heart attack. I saw two adult people, men, sitting on two chairs behind a fence that blocked the way to what appeared to be the corridor of a common entrance to a house.
Sense of survival:
See if anyone is armed.
I conversed with both gentlemen for a while and told them what had happened to me. They were very skeptical at first, you could tell they did not trust me completely, they thought I was going to rob them, or do something to them. Their sense of survival was activated, perhaps.
After proving to them that what had happened was true, they freed themselves a little and started talking a little more. One of them thought that surely what had happened to me was that the officer had called that motorcycle to rob me as soon as he left; the other, he said that they were safe where my car was, dismissing him. Everything they told me was confirming that the officer had something to do with the whole thing.
After all, I was not going to trust them like that. Having spent 20-25 minutes, one of the gentlemen told me that where I was sitting was the door of a private place, and that the ideal would be to get away from there as soon as possible.
Sense of survival:
Was I in a place where there are people of high rank in the government, corrupt of course, probably armed?
Was I in a clandestine casino (since casinos are banned in this country)?
Were the gentlemen who spoke with me complicit in something bad that could be happening inside the house?
One of the gentlemen told me that inside the house there were some "clients" who were not very kind, and that they could dislike my presence. I never knew what was going on inside that building, I just got going by saying goodbye quickly and looking again for another place to hide while I was contacting a family member and, even if the option was not ruled out, the crane that the officer (or supposed officer), assigned me, would arrive.
Sense of survival:
Find a place where the two gentlemen can not see you.
Call someone to come help you.
Make sure that wherever you go to hide you can not be seen by cars or motorcycles that pass by.
Wait. Better that something happens to the car than to you.
Everything culminated in me hiding, calling my mother to come and look for me and wait if by accident of the universe a crane arrived.
After about 30 minutes of absolute silence, my mother came to the place and called me to go quickly to where the car was. When I arrived at the place, I saw two policemen behind my car and my mother parked a little farther back.
The cops were quite cooperative; they managed to get me a crane and I finally managed to get home safe and sound.
The next day, my mother told me that when she arrived at the car the two policemen were very impatient, upset, as if they had been planning something with the car. She also told me that when she arrived the policemen told her that the car had been reported as abandoned, by the officer who had been there before. How was that possible? If I myself spoke with the officer and he had told me to hide... That's when I managed to analyze what happened in reality, coinciding with the explanation that my mother had given me minutes ago.
Sense of survival:
Sure, my mother told me, and most of all, I was told by the two gentlemen who had thrown me off the stairs. It was a plot, the first officer had given the signal so that as soon as I fled for some motorized assumptions, the other policemen came and they would try to take the car. Luckily, they did not count on my mother and me arriving there before the crane they had called, supposedly for us, arrived in a matter of minutes when at that time neither I nor the other officer could get a hold of anyone. Coincidence, don’t you think?
Well, my goal with this post was to show everyone how an environment manages to modify the attitude and instincts of a person to think in the most malicious way possible. Of course, if you can not think in this way in this country, it is most likely that you will be the victim of many assaults, kidnappings, or well... you know... the worst.
A life of 22 years in this country, the time of protests and infinities of stories have taught me to be this way, and in a way, I do not know if it is something good or something bad. What do you think?
If you want to know what other experiences have led me to think about this "sense of survival" you can go through my post: