A Thief in the Night, Pt.4

I walk fast, down a slight incline, the 3 km or so back to the border. Following me on his back, he tells me to slow down a bit, to take it easy, that he was looking for me and that he had a place to stay. Relating to him the story of what just happened, I apologize and say that it is too late, that I am returning to the border to see if I can find a place to sleep at the police checkpoint.

He says that he will go with me.

I am upset, I want to be alone, but I dont say no. At least I am on a lit street/hwy, though there are no cars to be seen. I am nervous. He says he is a Christian, and that you cannot trust people around this area. I tell him I agree. He continues to offer a hammock at his house, I continue to decline, and so it goes, for the next 1/2 hour.

A slightly creepy Luz del Mundo church is dimly lit next to another dimly lit grass park. I ask my escort what he thinks of this group. I tell him that I have seen a lot of them in El Salvador after not seeing many at all in Guatemala. He says he believes they are false prophets. That they do not help the poor and that they believe that there is a guy at the top, who they call the “apostle” who is their only connection to God. Without him, they believe, there is no salvation.

We make it to the border without issue and in good time. Explaining to the police the incident that had occurred, I ask them if there is a place where I can sleep near the police station for the night. The officer on duty checks with his boss, then points to the gritty white tile, lit by florescents, where I will sleep for the night. They do not have a hammock, so I ask for cardboard or something to cushion the floor. The officer goes inside the station, returning with a squishy foam pad. I am grateful.

__________

They wake me up at 7 and tell me it is time to go. I am sore. My side hurts where I fell the night before. It is hot and dry and I already feel dehydrated. Remembering the night before, I check my pocket to see what might have fallen out. My passport, gone.

Immediately, I notify the police and ask them to return with me to the home where the incident occurred, only, they would not. They tell me I have to walk 2k up the road to the next police station, because the area where the incident occurred is out of their jurisdiction.

Walking back from where I had been the night before, everything feels different. Hot already, my shoes grip the pavement. Exhaust from idling trucks makes me nauseous. Transvestite prostitute I saw from the night before passes, still in her blue flapper dress, dirty white ankle socks, and platform shoes, her makeup smeared.

I plead my case at the next police station, only they cannot help me either. You see, they have no car, and they say that it actually is in the jurisdiction of the other station. I return to the other station on foot.

It is 9:3o AM by the time I am finally able to convince the police to accompany me back to the scene of where I lost my passport.  I did not feel comfortable going there alone. We pull up to the house in the pickup truck and they blare the sirens for a good few seconds to alert the people in the house that we are there.

A very poor, elderly, woman with a dirty cast makes her way to the gate that I unsuccessfully traversed the night before, her husband, older, wearing a blue collared sweat-stained shirt that looked like it had not been laundered in months, followed close behind.

The police explained to them the situation, which they listened to with disbelief. I had not met the parents the night before, and they did not know that we were sitting out on the porch. I began to think that the guy may not have even lived there. They didn’t recognize the name that I gave them and in any case they had not seen or heard of a passport being found on or near their property.

I decide the situation is hopeless. I return to the border with my head hung slightly lower than before, tired from many things. I am really beginning to feel the wear of the road. I ask an officer to make an official report, which he does on a piece of printer paper, signing his name and badge number, no stamp.

I return to the border checkpoint and ask them also to make a note. Here I meet Steven, who had lived around the world for the last 30 years, with at least 3 different passports from different countries. I am jealous. I have none. We exchange pleasantries, and we ask each other what brings us here. He is a traveler, well-worn from the road, through and through. Not religious or even really spiritual, he is interested in the project nonetheless, and concerned with what happened with my passport.

We go our separate ways after exchanging contacts, not sure if we will see each other again, and I continue, always south, towards the next large town down the Panamerican, Nacaome, about 30 miles in the hot, sea-level plane, sun.

(Cont’d)