Ladron

Today, the craziest thing of my service yet happened. A ladron – thief, was shot and killed down the street from my house. It happened at about 7:00 a.m. The story goes something like this: there is an older couple (mid 60s) who have spent most of their adult lives in New York. They recently came back to La Caya, about six months ago, to build their own Dominican mini-mansion. The house, completely made of cinderblock is two stories with a grand valet entrance, and in just a few short months it will be a gorgeous structure.

This morning, the couple apparently walked over to the house to check out the progress before the construction workers would return to start the day’s work. As they were walking around the unfinished house, the ladron was also inside, with a gun; waiting for someone to show up to rob them (this is the part of the story that slightly confuses me). He saw the woman, and pulled her necklace off her neck and started to run away. At this point, the woman’s husband, who also had a gun, chased after him and shot him dead. 

When I woke up this morning, I could hear the chaos of the scene from people screaming in the street. I did not hear the gun shot, so I honestly thought someone had probably hit a cow with their truck or something (which can be as equally as big of a deal in some cases). I woke up slowly and finally after getting dressed, went downstairs to notice Francia and all of my neighbors outside staring and shouting at something down the road.

As I approached them, they immediately told me that a ladron had been killed. The body was laying face down right in the middle of the road, in front of the new house being built. It looked like he was shot twice in the lower back. Someone had laid one of the guns on his left side. His red graphic hat was lying precariously on its side a few inches from his head, looking like the wind could take it away at any time, and his white hoodie was blood soaked. 

I didn’t get close enough to see his face. Partly because I don’t think I could have handle it, and also because the circle of people around the body was growing by the minute. I could tell as the news made its way up La Caya. Like a river going upstream, as soon as people heard, they came zooming down on their motorcycles to see for themselves if the story was true.

An hour and a half later, the police still hadn’t arrived. La Caya doesn’t have its own police station, so everything had to wait until the police from Mao (the closest big city, about 40 minutes away) showed up. When I first moved here everyone told me La Caya was safe and we didn’t need police, because nothing bad happens here. Until today, that statement has been more or less very true. 

I have no idea what the dead man’s name was, his age, whether he had a wife and kids or what exactly his true intentions were this morning. However, I do know that he is now dead. And there is another man, much older than him, who killed him in front of his new, unfinished house. I wonder how often this man will look out his window, or pull into his new driveway, once it is complete, and think about how the body just laid there for hours.

Later in the morning, as my neighbors and myself tried to forget about it all, I told Francia how sad it was on all levels. She agreed and then said, “Well now thieves will know not to come back to La Caya.” I guess she’s probably right.