And Don’t Even Get Me Started on Hannah Montana

The other night while we were sleeping, a man shot his wife dead while she cowered in a closet in their home in Alexandria. Then he took his weapon for an erratic drive. When he was pulled over, he shot an Alexandria police officer in the chest. He then led some other officers on a high-speed chase before killing himself.

This past Saturday while we were apple-picking, a man had a domestic issue with his girlfriend, who lives within sight of our house. When the police, their helicopters, and the SWAT team responded to the hostage situation, he shot at them. He was eventually taken into custody by a man with twigs on his hat without anyone getting physically hurt.

I’d like to say these are isolated incidents, but it would be more accurate if I called them the latest incidents. Since we moved into our house in May of 2001, there have been two gang-style murders within spitting distance, an errant drive-by shooting (which means only that the bullets missed their intended targets), and numerous assaults along the roads leading to and from the metro. Oh yeah, we also were rammed twice from behind by another car as we waited in our car at a traffic light. The guy wanted to move us out of the way so he could continue his flight from the police in his stolen car.

All these incidents occurred within 100 yards in any direction of our house. I don’t even have to put pen to paper to illustrate that this condition permeates our larger society as well. Everyone knows that all they have to do for the latest fix of local violence and tragedy is to turn on the five o’clock news.

Before we left for Quito, the one question that everyone posed was, “Is it safe?” I even blogged about it, if you can believe that. My answer was and is, “It’s at least as safe as it is here.”

In many ways I think it’s a legitimate question, but my instinct is that it is mainly derived from this culture of fear that is instilled by our televisions and newspapers. The perception is that the world is fucked up and the only place we are safe is in our homes (so long as we’ve shut and locked the windows, installed a bolt-lock and maybe a chain lock on the door, and pay for a home-security system). But the reality is that we aren’t even safe in our own homes. I mean, it wouldn’t be that hard for some fucked-up, self-important asshole with a gun to get in if he really wanted to.

One of the reasons that Rebecca and I have doubts about living permanently in Ecuador is the poverty. Not the fact that it exists, because it exists here as well (we just cover it up better), but that it exists so obviously.

The fact that children work in the streets selling gum or polishing shoes is heart-wrenching at first. But after you see it day after day, it becomes routine. Sometimes it even becomes a nuisance.

The other concern we have is the obvious disparity among the classes. If you transplanted the Eichlerino’s to Ecuador, you would be transplanting us from the ranks of the middle-class to the privileged world of the upper-class. Yes, in Ecuador we would be able to afford household employees, could easily visit Volcano Park two or three times a month, and might even be able to own a septic system that can handle flushed toilet paper.

If Maya and Jonah grew up in that environment, how long would it take the street children to become invisible? How long would it take Maya and Jonah to feel entitled to having someone to pick up after them and drive them here and there? Yes, I know that they are already accustomed to these things, but dang, eventually Maya is going to put her own clean underwear in her drawer, right? She doesn’t need the hired help to do it for her until she’s eighteen.

But the flip side is, by remaining here, how long will it take them to become accustomed to and accept the random violence that Americans endure? And will that errant drive-by bullet find them one day?