A Rough Sunday in Belem

I will be posting more updates on my daily life here in Belem, but for now I thought I would share an incidence that happened to me on Sunday. However, for reasons described below I will not be posting pictures or video clips of the city anytime soon... but will hopefully be able to describe the city in words!

On a positive note before I begin my story, I am loving my work at Imazona and my host family is slowing warming up to me. In fact last night they gave me q-tips and cotton balls - I'm taking this a very kind gesture, otherwise they must think I am dirty! But at least they are talking to me now - it took about a week for the parents to even utter a word to me, but now they are acting much friendlier.

Here is my Father's Day in Brazil:
Sunday afternoon I went out to go sightseeing with a Canadian friend from Imazon. She just arrived here a couple weeks ago for her Ph.D. research and I didn't realize where we were walking to get to a really pretty area... It turned out to be a horrible section of town and I got mugged/robbed. It was horrible and I still can't believe it happened; it seems like a really bad dream to me.

The incidence occurred right after we took cover under an overhang to wait out a downpour. As we were starting to leave, I saw a man sprint towards me. He grabbed my purse, but I didn't let go - he was a tiny-little, 25 -30 year old man and I was pretty much winning the tug of war game, until my friend yelled at me that he had a huge knife. He was trying to cut my "theft-proof" bag with a 8-10 inch, large, rusty knife. I dropped my bag and he ran off with my two cell phones (US and Brazil), my fancy camera that I received as a graduation from my parents (it was the first time that I had taken it out because I was scared of theft), my credit card, and some money. Turns out that I got a cut on my wrist from the knife and it bled like crazy all over me and my friend. But we were safe and I didn't really get hurt that badly, so that is all that matters. I feel horrible for my friend though, I can't imagine what it must have been like to watch what happened. I imagine it to be even scarier than having it happen to myself because when you are watching it happen you would feel so helpless.

I don't care about my stuff - it is all replaceable and insured too, but the big thing now is that I feel like my "identity was stolen." Not my identity like ID (and thank goodness I only had a copy of my passport with me at the time), but my identity as a person who can travel by themselves and be totally self-sufficient. I am scared to walk anywhere now and probably won't for a long time. I am scared just to be here. I know this can happen anywhere, but it seems almost unbearable to be in a country where I don't speak the language well and am so unfamiliar with anything here.

But everyone has been very supportive and Professor Arima and his wife came to pick me up from my host family's house after it happened and take me to his wife's parents' house and I spent the night there.

Hopefully, my fear will go away and it will seem like it never happened, but for now anyone that walks near me almost makes me jump. Though at this point I have nothing else of value: no purse, no wallet, no camera, no cell phone... so really what is there nothing else to steal.
I really feel bad the people who have a life of stealing though, what must their life be like? They live in poverty and obviously feel there is no hope for them to survive without petty theft. It must be a dismal and very unhappy existence to say the least. I've also been told that the money stolen goes towards drugs a lot of the times. Just not a happy life at all.

It seems like a lot of my professor's family and people at Imazon have a story about being mugged themselves, so it is not that they picked on the American blond girl as an easy target. (Though in a city where I have seen no tourists, me and my blond hair stick out like a sore thumb). In fact, my host family's son told me last night that he had been robbed four times last year within blocks of his house. So it really does seem like everyone knows someone who has been a victim of theft or has been one themselves.

Well, basically it all has to get better from here on out - I hope...