WHO SAYS NOTHING EVER HAPPENS IN BAHÍA? (No.3)
Bahía de Caraquéz, Ecuador, Monday, August 27, 2007

That story ended happily. But, for two children and a young man, things are looking different. Especially now when there are so many Quito families here for the vacation, there are lots of motor-scooters and 4-wheeled beach-buggies. There are rules in Ecuador, pretty generally ignored, about wearing protective clothing and especially helmets. Hell, there are also rules about kids driving. Also on paper only.

The other day, we were once again at that cyber-café on Avenida Bolívar when we heard a very loud metallic clap out in the street and the screeching of something metal being dragged along. An SUV came to a halt right in front of the glass door of the cyber-café in which we were working, a motor-scooter jammed under its front right bumper. We ran out to see two kids, a little girl of about 10 and a young boy of about 15, screaming and running around in agony. They were wearing only bathing suits. The SUV driver had apparently nicked them at the corner (perhaps he was trying to turn to the right), dumped the kids into the street, caught the motor-scooter by the bumper and dragged it some thirty or forty yards.

I told the guy who runs the cyber-café to call an ambulance and the police. Then I took out my camera and took a couple of pictures of the front licence plate of the car. The driver himself had got out of the vehicle and gone back to see what had transpired with the kids. Then, while I was snapping pictures, he walked back to the car, got in, started it up, and began to back up rapidly, all the while tooting the horn to get people to leap out of his way. He backed into the intersection again, clipping another car on its rear fender in the process and leaving a little sprinkling of metal and plastic in the street and a streak of bent metal on the second car. He raced off up the side street with his face rigidly set to the front.

Several minutes had passed since the original accident and by this time there was quite a crowd. The driver had just left the scene of the accident. This is a very small town. Everybody knew who he was (he works at the car wash) and everybody even knew whose car he was driving (it belongs to the owner of a local grocery store). What on earth was going on in that man’s head as he raced to get away? The ambulance arrived and a police cruiser. Within a minute or two the police car pulled up the block to car wash place and, I assume, found the bloke there.

I have been haunted ever since by that man. Even though I have no idea who was at fault, in an instant his whole life has been changed, first by hitting two kids on a motor scooter. And then he flees the scene of an accident without any hope whatsoever of escaping detection! That’s the amazing part. He must have known he could never get away with it! So, guilty of the original deed or not, he panicked. Had he perhaps been drinking that morning? Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be driving that particular car just then.

Anyway, they are now going to throw the book at that guy: the police; the family of the kids; the owner of the car; the owner of the car he clipped; the guy’s boss; everybody. Maybe he has a family himself. Whatever, he will be paying a lot of money to other people and will be lucky not to land in jail.

Who says nothing ever happens in Bahía?