Do-Nothing Response to Crime Prevails

Now for the people's response to crime here. This could be a very short entry, because there's not much response!

Here are a few examples:

An employee of our next-door neighbor saw the guy who robbed our house. He had been casing it from their cow pasture. He also saw the man walking away from our house with a suit case. He did not bother to call the police.

A few weeks earlier, another neighbor stood by and watched as a man fitting the same description entered the property of a house across the street and walk away a few minutes later with a number of things he did not possess when he went in. The neighbor did nothing.

A week or so after our house was hit, the next door neighbor's farm hand saw the same man casing another house in the neighborhood. He did call us and followed the man a short distance, but did not call the police.

A few years ago a Costa Rican friend was on a bus trip with us. He saw someone steal a fellow passenger's suit case. He watched the thief walk off the bus with the bag and did nothing. He did, however, learn a lesson. He saw someone stealing a bag on the return trip and called out. The owner of the bag chased the thief down and got his bag back.

Natalia's boyfriend Cesar was murdered in broad daylight at a crowded section in the middle of Tejarcillos. No one saw anything.

Last year a Costa Rican friend who lives in the slums was away from home when gunmen entered and held up his son at their home. The men took everything they could carry from the house, including the food and clothing. They made several trips to and from the house. In full view of the neighborhood, no one saw anything.

One Costa Rican friend had his business broken into, found the culprit, and, knowing that nothing would happen if he called the police, cut a deal with the thief. He paid him off not to burglarize the business again. The thief kept his end of the deal.

The do-nothing mentality is not limited to crime, however. Martha and I have both happened upon dying pedestrians who were hit by trucks. In Martha's case, one man did offer his cell phone, while no one else in the substantial crowd that had gathered tried to help in any way. We had only been here a couple of months, but Martha prayed with and comforted the woman with the little Spanish she knew.

Last fall I came upon a man who was dying in the street after a truck ran him over. A crowd was gathering but no one tried to help. I went over and prayed with and comforted the man until he died.

One day when my parents were visiting we were walking past a field where a large brush fire was burning. Embers were beginning to float across the street where people lived in flimsy houses. Folks were watching the fire from their door steps. So I asked the folks at the first house we passed, "Have you called the fire department?" "No," they said. So I called the same question up to the folks at the next house we passed. Again, the answer was no. My parents were getting pretty stressed by now. I did not have a cell phone. I said to my parents that those people could easily call the fire department if they chose to, and if their houses burned down there wasn't really much we could do about it.

Why are the people here like this? The answer is probably complex, but I believe it boils down to a deep-seated fatalism. We Americans are taught that we are the masters of our destinies. Here, and probably throughout the "two thirds world," the attitude is "lo que sera sera," (whatever will be will be) and "lo que Dios quiera," (whatever God wills). There is a time to be born and a time to die, so no one does much to prevent either event.

More next time. Thanks for taking the time to read this!