Flat tires

Someone in my neighborhood was busy today.  Two of my neighbors woke up find the tires closest to the curb were flat.  As I headed out to a doctor appointment, I discovered the same.  All of us were parked in front of a church that is not busy at all on Mondays or Tuesdays and has never caused problems in the neighborhood.  At first I wondered if I had any enemies in Honduras.  But then the man who pushes the ice cream cart came by and said this has been happening a lot lately.  Always in front of the church, and more specifically always across the street from the same house.

A lady from the house he was speaking of came out to "look at a tree" that was near my car.  Other people were stopping their cars (and ice cream carts) to ask if I needed help.  But she just looked at her tree and didn't talk to me.  What made it stranger was that later she spoke to me in English, so it wasn't a language barrier that kept her away.

Sunday I came home from church and my street was full of cars from the Catholic church across the street.  Santos (Fany's husband) came out to open the gates for me to pull into the garage, but I had looked at the way the cars were parked and decided it was going to be hard to get into the garage with the street so full.  So I told him thanks, but I would move my car inside later when the streets were more clear.

Then yesterday I got lazy.  I have left the car outside before and nothing happened to it.  We have guards that patrol and it is a gated community, so I never worried much about my car.  I never see broken glass in the streets from break-ins and I haven't heard of any problems.  Until today.

When I first approached the car from the drivers sign today everything seemed fine.  But when I tried to drive the car away from the curb I realized it didn't want to move.  I knew I had a flat tire.  I didn't expect two.

A bus driver came and started yelling at me that he couldn't get past me.  I was trying to get the car as close to the curb as possible without ruining the rims.  His yelling did not help.  An assistant got out of the bus and starts motioning for me to pull forward.  He doesn't understand that despite his motioning the car does not want to move.  Finally the driver says, "The car has problems?"  and the assistant says, "Hey!  You have two flat tires!"  That was the angriest I got.  "I KNOW!!!!" I said, frustrated that they thought I was such an idiot I didn't know how to pull the car forward a foot to let them pass.

After they got by I got out of the car and saw my special surprise - two completely flat tires.  I called my mechanic.  He always said if I ever had a problem I could call him and he would come.  He is a man of his word.  The ice cream man and I talked.  The lady from the house across the street checked her tree, and then told me she planted all of the trees on the street, which I was later told by several people is a lie.  Then my mechanic arrived.  He was really upset when he saw what happened.  He had brought 2 extra tires to put on my car, thinking we could just go inflate the ones I had and change them out.  But when he saw what I noticed right away, that the tops were still on the little nozzle where you insert air, he realized we were probably dealing with punctured tires.

He asked the ice cream man to stay with me and my car, took my tires and left.  The ice cream man and I talked about a lot of things.  He is really nice.  He had the opportunity to move legally to the US but decided not to because he was afraid it would be easy to get wrapped up in his new life and forget about his family in Honduras.  He has a wife and a little girl here.  As we stood on the hilltop in my neighborhood he pointed out areas that are dangerous, and where it is more safe.  He comes from a dangerous place pretty far away, pushing that ice cream cart with a bell, to sell his ice cream in the safer places.  Fany tells me he has been selling ice cream here for at least 10 years, since he was a young boy.

He told me it is very strange to have the tires slashed because my neighborhood is hard to get into.  He said it has to be a neighbor.  The mechanic had said the same exact thing.  Then a man came up to me with photos of my car, his own car, and a car that had been parked behind us.  When he tried to leave for work this morning at 5 a.m. he found all of our tires slashed.  We were all parked in front of the same house.  The English speaking tree lady's house.

Fany came out to see what was going on.  She called her cousin who is my landlord.  At the same time they both said to each other that they thought it was that lady.  Apparently she has done some damage to my landlord's car too.

So, everyone was in agreement.  The first person to arrive on the scene, besides the ice cream man who was just passing by, was probably the culprit.  I had spoken to her nicely.  Now, 10 hours later, Fany and I just found another car with its tires flat.  This one is in front of OUR house.  The car was there this afternoon, but the tires were not flat.  And this time the flat is on the side by the road, not by the sidewalk.  Our tire slasher is getting more brave.

I feel sorry for the person who is going to go to their car to discover that.  I know it is not a good feeling.

I do have things to be grateful for in all of this.  First, it happened near my house in a place where I didn't have to worry about my own safety.  I just stood and gabbed with the ice cream man, who my mechanic had instructed to wait with me.  Secondly, I have an awesome mechanic who drops everything and comes to help when I need something.  That is a huge blessing.  And third, they were just tires. Yes, they are expensive, not in my budget, and they were less than a year old.  But they are replaceable.

When my mechanic came back from fixing the tires he was even more shaken up.  He waited for the ice cream man to leave and then he sat down and asked me to take a seat next to him.  He said that he had gone to the police.  There were three wholes in each tire.  (The man who had taken photos as 5 a.m. said there were three holes in each of his tires too.)  He said the holes were strategically placed in a very specific area, which is pretty much impossible to fix.  And worst of all, they were put there by a tool that resembles an ice pick.  It has a wooden handle with a spiral metal part that comes to a tiny, straight, sharp point at the end.  The police whoever did this was very angry.  They didn't just let the air out of the tires.  They were vengeful.  The police told him to warn me never to park outside again because the person would likely see this as a warning and would take a more drastic step if I ever leave my car outside again.  That step, they said, could be against me or my car.

My mechanic was angry and worried for me.  We put the patched up tires on the car and took it to his garage so he can see how it is in the morning.  He believes it will need new tires.  At least I was not planning to start my new ministry this week because he said he will have the car for most of the day tomorrow.  He has some other work to finish up and he wants to see how long the tires hold air.  I did have lunch plans with a friend, which we have been planning for almost a month.  But she understood that we have to postpone.

Tonight Fany went around closing everything up extra tight.  That's when she saw the car with the flat tire right in front of our house.  We didn't dare go out and check to see if the curb side tires were flat as well for fear people may see us and think that we had flattened the tire.

At least I know it was not something personal against me.  Seems we have a tire slasher in my neighborhood.  And they are keeping very busy.