Day 9: Boring Again

It's good that it's boring here. That means treatment is going well and we've fallen in to a routine. We'd much rather have that than constant drama each day. Some new people came today - an Amish couple from central Ohio. Their names are Joesph (they all seem to be named that) and Martha. Very young...maybe early 20's. Joesph has cancer. They left three children back home, a 4-year-old, 2-year-old and 1. Martha seemed very sad when she told us about her kids. They'll be here three weeks. The family we've made friends with leaves tomorrow. That puts no one in the apartments except John and I and two patients in the hospital. The nurses say this is the slow time of the year but it should pick up in the next week or two. Ho-hum.
We did have a bit of excitement during dinner, I suppose. Tijuana is a city of 3 million people, most of them poor. There's going to be violence in a city of that many people. Just think of what happens on the North side of La Crosse once in a blue moon. The government has never had much control over the drug cartel (which has most of the power here) until now. They have a new president [just heard gun fire] and he's cracking down on the cartel. Cartel are acting like spoiled children and rebelling big time. Tonight, during our dinner, about a mile down the road, the cartel raided a restaurant, starting shooting up the place and kidnapped a patron. This went on unknown to us...so as we're all sitting in the dining room (see photo from earlier post), there are suddenly 5, 6, 7 cop trucks screaming up and down the street in front of the clinic. Their sirens are blaring and they're just tearing up and down the road...squealing tires as they turn the corner. The cops had their guns drawn and they were in the "ready" position. It really scared us all. Everyone stopped eating and wondered if we should hit the ground. None of the night staff at the clinic spoke Spanish. I'm the most "fluent" speaker here and that wasn't getting us far so we really didn't know what was happening. We found out later through one of the English-speaking doctors who came in for rounds. Soon after the cop cars came, the helicopters came out. It was seriously like in a movie. And, like in the movie, we sat there like waiting ducks. But where were we to go? Back to our rooms? Not us, I'm not taking my kid outside. In the kitchen? Not allowed and there was no gun fire, so I doubt they'd let us. The clinic was locked, so we couldn't go there. We just sat there, all together. Figured we had some safety in numbers. Finally the night guard we have at the clinic came in and we asked him what was up. His answer, "No habla englais." Great. He went straight to the kitchen, the cooks, servers and he spoke for a bit. One of the servers came out and told us to just stay here. "Everything is fine." Everything DID turn out fine (obviously since I'm writing you), but it was quite scary. As of writing this, the police have not found the gunmen or the kidnap victim. The news showed shot out cop cars and rows of police lights(that's one thing they don't lack down here are cop cars). The doctor I spoke with about the incident said cartel has been focusing on people who look like they have money: people who drive fancy cars (either citizens or Americans) or dress nicely. Since we're neither, I really do think we're safe. But I think there will be no more walks to the grocery store like earlier today. I'm not willing to take any chances. We'll have to get everything we need on the weekend when we're over the border. No one is clear if just anybody is being targeted on these attacks or if it's just cartel killing cartel. Hopefully that's the case. Not that you want anyone to to die, but if it's gonna happen it might as well be them killing each other. Well, on that note: Good night.

For 5B:
This John. I can't come home early. I have to stay 21 days and Sundays. Thanks for your notes. I like them. They make me laugh. I miss you all, too. Street ball is just a made up game of ball in the street. We didn't play in the street. We played in a patio. We kicked the ball against the wall. The other person tried to kick it back. You had to kick hard to trick the other person. It was fun!