Robbers on the Roof (?)

The night before moving day and all through the house, not a creature was moving, except for a mouse (i.e. the many rats that live on the rooftops, because that’s what they do). I was nestled all snug in my bed, and visions of snowflakes danced in my head. Then up on the rooftop, there came such a clatter, I woke up puzzling (aka freaking out) as to what was the matter. 

A rat, I thought, or just something falling, and I lay there wishing to go back to sleep. But the banging came again, so loud that there was no way it could be a rat. No, I thought, stop being paranoid, Emily. It’s rat’s for sure. They’re at least eight inches long here, not counting the tail, and they live up on the ceilings of houses. It’s a rat. But the banging came again, louder. Like a person-size rat was moving around directly over my head.

My heartbeat began to speed up a bit. What does one do in Colombia when one thinks there may be are people on the roof? I wondered.

A fun detail that helped to increase that heart rate: My window is a sliding glass pane. There are no locks or bars, just a little piece of cardboard to put inside the window to prop it closed…which I’d conveniently forgotten to do after catching some breezes yesterday.  My room is maybe six feet wide total, and my bed is pushed against the wall directly under that window.

I lay still hoping for something, anything, to convince me it was just an animal when I heard a whistle being blown out in the street, which Heidi’s host mother had told us is how robbers signal each other.

Then there was another bang directly above me.

Holy shit, someone was trying to rob us, thought I.

Now, in the US, I would be on the phone in the second with the police. But since I have no idea how concept of 911 works here other than the fact the number is 123, and I haven’t recently brushed up on my scared-out-of-my-mind Spanish abilities, all I could think was that I was a gringa with a glass window. Too scared to leave the room in case they had somehow broken into the house, I reached over and grabbed the aluminum water bottle sitting by my bed. I can get a few good defensive whacks in with this at least, I thought, as I hunkered down on the floor.

There was car horn in the street from the front of our house, and then a muffled cough. There were more noises like feet. So, lacking the ability to protect myself in any useful manner, I then did what any rational peace corps volunteer would do…I called our duty officer—the person in the office whose job it is to answer our calls time of day or night. 

Turn on the lights, he told me, and make some noise. They would get scared and leave. It made sense, so I did so. He also told me to call our security officer who may have other suggestions.

This conversation with our security is slightly abbreviated, but includes only direct quotes:

Me: Frank, I think there were people on our roof trying to rob us. I heard really loud noises, a muffled cough, and a whistle signal on the streets.

Frank: Uh huh.  The rats are really loud here. It could be a rat.

Me: There were whistle signals right outside my house.

Frank: Well. Is there anyone else in your house?

Me: An old man with Alzheimer’s and his wife.

Frank: And the rest of the family? Are they coming home soon?

Me: Umm. It’s just us. I was too scared to leave my room. Also, there are no locks on my windows. It’s glass.

Frank: You should lock your window.

Me: There are no locks on the window.

Frank: You should try and lock your window

Me: Right. Anything else?

Frank: You can try calling the police number…

Me: *silence*

Frank: What barrio are you in?

Me: Barrio ****

Frank: Oh, well, that’s not so bad…okay. Stay in your room and see how it goes. Call me if anything else happens!

I have had more reassuring conversations with my teddy bear. 

But feeling better that I’d turned on my light and made a little noise and rather than a thief jumping through the window, the noises seemed to be gone, I stood near my door until my heart rate slowed to a more reasonable less-than-a-thousand-beats a minute.

At 4am, about 10 minutes later, I heard a whistle a few blocks down, so I figured that our house was safe…but after a little while realized that maybe we’d want to call the police, or something,  so I woke up my grandparents.

After my abuelo was appraised of the situation, he naturally went straight for the machete, then climbed onto the roof in order to terrify and/or kill the robbers single handedly. No one was there. We went to the front and when we didn’t see anything out the hidey-hole, my abuelo patrolled the block a little bit with machete in hand. 

“Todo bien,” he and my abuela declared, when they saw no one on the streets. All is well. Calling the police to let them know there might be robbers working the area is apparently not done here…so I went back to bed, where I may or may not have composed this post waiting for the adrenaline to clear out a bit so that I could go back to sleep. During which time I heard the faint whistle of the robbers as they continued their work on some other street… 

In the morning my abuelos told me that it was probably just the wind. They said in 25 years only once did people scale the walls, and they were people who were working on the house next door… Still, I have to say that this was the first time I was glad that my new room possesses no windows!