I’m in Honduras. Ostensibly to deliver a training course I developed, but I’m also taking advantage of the opportunity to witness the implementation of our new system at one of our convenience stores.
What initial visions I had of seeing a bit of the country rapidly disappeared when my contact over here advised me (before I’d even set off on my 36-hour 4-flight trip to get here) that under no circumstances should I get a taxi from the airport to the hotel, and that a named driver (whose ID I sholuld check), holding a sign with a pre-defined codeword on it, would meet me, and I shouldn’t go anywhere without him. “By the way, you do have kidnap insurance, don’t you?” they casually added…
Anyway, I arrived safely, although Mr. X was 20 minutes late at the airport, which panicked me as I had no local money (and there’s no Bureau De Change at the airport), there were no payphones, and the ‘taxi drivers’ and random street urchins were closing in on me. The driver was very apologetic though, and took me to the hotel and then on to the store at breakneck speed, just to make up for it.
I’d been at the store all of half an hour when we had our first attempted armed robbery. A motorcyclist sped up to the store brandishing a pistol, demanding the store’s takings. I don’t think their heart was really in it though, as when they were told flatly that there was no cash on site as we weren’t really open and were only converting the site, they just gave up and just rode off again (presumably in search of another store at which to try their luck). The staff seemed fairly nonplussed by it all, so I took it to be a fairly regular occurrence.
Regardless, the police were still called so that a formal report could be filed. The policeman arrived on his motorbike looking no more trustworthy than the would-be armed robber – the main difference between the two of them apparently being the size of their guns. Strangely, his arrival didn’t exactly fill me with a warm feeling of being safe now…
Later in the day, I was interrupted by the sight of two men armed with pump-action shotguns slipping in through the door and casing the place. I was just about to dive for cover behind the candy display when the Store Manager pointed out that this was just the ‘cash collector’ picking up the previous day’s takings to deliver to the bank. That would be the same takings the Store Manager told the armed robber we didn’t have, then…
So, all-in-all, it’s shaping up to be a nice, relaxing trip! If this turns out to be my last posting to this ‘blog, I’d like to be buried at sea (just to be awkward) and ask for donations to the Free Tibet Campaign in lieu of flowers at my funeral…
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