Theft and attempted Theft!!!

We had our first close encounter with theft today. We piled onto an overcrowded bus on our way to the Peace Corps office and a few minutes before we got off, a well dressed woman made her way down the aisle and stopped next to Liz and leaned up against her. She put her blazer across the top of Liz's backpack, which Liz was wearing in front, and then proceeded to unzip Liz's backpack. Liz noticed what was going on, grabbed the woman's hand out of her bag and the woman just stood there nonchalantly as if they had just exchanged a greeting. It was unbelievable. Before the woman got off, she rubbed up against one other volunteer but this time cut her bag with a small razor she had and managed to get away with a bunch of small things, such as chapstick and hand sanitizer. I hope everytime she uses her hand sanitizer she thanks the nice american girl who unwittingly gave it to her.

When we got to the office one other girl from our group realized that the same woman had cut her bag as well but didn't get away with anything. So the moral of the story is never trust a well dressed woman rubbing up against you in a bus no matter what. No matter how old or nice she looks...and keep loaded bear traps inside any bag in Guatemala on a bus (or stool samples, as one volunteer recently was on their way to the doctor with their sample and it was stolen.).