By my fourth day in Santiago I decided to go visit a few museums.
I arrive outside of museum number one and I stopped to take a picture of the view.During this time, I witness one woman approaching another, unsuccesfully, and thought, ¨ugh oh, she's coming to me...easy target¨, and of course she did. She introduced herself and then the encounter continued.
(Interaction has been loosely translated from Spanish)
A woman immediately comes to us and says ¨No, no. Ella es ladrona, es mujer mala.¨ (Ladrona= thief) So at this moment I knew what I was in for but, because of an interaction I'd had with a person in Guatemala about prejudgments and refusal to have conversations, I decided to continue to engage her. She asked me about my whereabouts in Santiago and told me she immigrated from the Dominican Republic. She then tells me, in the beginning, she doesn't want my money. Yeah, okay!
She grabs my hand and begins ¨reading¨ my palm telling me I will be blessed, asking my heart's desires for the world, blah blah blah...then she tells me everything I give is not for her, but for me. She shows me her wallet saying she has money and doesn't need mine, I chuckle. After tapping my pocket, she asks me to take some money out and hold it in my hand, I refuse. She says she needs to bless it for me...I refuse again, and in the quickest move she grabs my pocket and snatches out some money, I grab her wrist and pull some back but she still has a little. I laughed. (Side note, this is why you divide your money between locations and never carry too much). What she grabbed was equivalent to about $12 US. So I then tell her that she lied to me and she has robbed me now...duh, right? And then she goes off.
¨No! This is not your money, I didn't rob you. I'm pregnant.¨
Her friend who must have just popped out of the ground, comes to her defense saying that she is pregnant, and it's not stealing. So I'm trying not to laugh too much at this point because I'm thinking, woa, this is crazy. She has the money balled up in her hand and when I go to get it back she begins to spit...yes spit on her hand and the money, to deter me. I'm in the zone though, there is always soap and water, so I go to grab some of it and get 3,000 pesos (~$5). She then calls over another woman saying that she had a baby she needed to feed and tells me I needed to help the baby and I would be blessed. I asked her why she hadn't just said that in the beginning and she told me because we were talking...whatever that was supposed to mean. Okay, skip to the end, I am just ready to go in the museum and carry on my day. I ask her how much she still has and she says 5,000 (~$8). I tell her to keep it then she begins to bless me again and reach for hugs and kisses.
After that I tell her, now that I have given you money, I'm going to take a picture with you and the baby and take a video and I can publish it on my blog. She said okay but she didn't have much else to say I guess. And there you have it.
(If you notice, after she says hola, she says Gypsy as well...hmmmm...)
