Dude! I got tear gassed last night...I am not too happy about that! What happened was that crime has been on the rise in Cajabamba. My little town has seen a lot more people passing through in recent days, and with Carnaval happening, people have been drinking and dancing at all hours.
While I was walking to catch my bus at 4:30 a.m. yesterday (nope, still haven´t learned my lesson after the accident), I saw blood and police on the street. It turns out that a guy had gotten shot a few hours ago while the partying was going on. The townspeople are not happy about that, and with the other violence that´s been happening, they decided to strike in front of the police station...close to where I live. After I had just gotten home last night and was taking a shower, I heard a lot of people shouting and a woman screaming. So, dumb me (nope, still haven´t learned after my accident), decided to get out of the shower and poke my head out the door to see what was going on. Apparently, the police had just started throwing tear bombs at the crowd and I got a good whiff of it. Having never been gassed in my life, I can say truly that it was not the most pleasant experience. I quickly shut the door, bolted it, and ran upstairs to watch what was going on through a window. It felt very surreal to watch my little town in such chaos; things like this just don´t normally happen in Cajabamba, Peru. I later went to sleep with the sound of chanting and tear bombs being thrown.
This morning, I woke up and the sun was shining, everything felt normal again--vendors are selling on the streets, children are getting ready for back to school, and there are a good bit of people walking around. Fortunately, it look like things didn´t get too out of hand last night.
