The weirdest story happened to me this week. I was on my way to work, just a block from my office, when a man on the street asked me to help him find a road. It turned out to be the very road we were on, but I wasn't able to locate the pharmacy he was looking for. He identified himself as coming from the province of Azuay, illiterate and a first-timer in the city of Quito (henceforth he shall be called province-guy). When I told him there was another pharmacy three blocks up the road, another man walked by, whom province-guy asked the same question. That man was on his way to run some errands for work, wore a tie and a leather jacket (henceforth he shall be called tie-guy), and told him the same thing as I had.
Then the story began: province-guy had to ask Dr. Luis from the pharmacy for help with a task his boss had given him, he explained. To which tie-guy asks if he has some address, which could help us locate Dr. Luis. Province-guy gives a small piece of paper, addressed to Dr. Luis, with the request to help province-guy to cash the cheque he has, but only to give him a third part of it, and split the rest between the two of them. That was weird, to say the least, so tie-guy asks province-guy to show what the cheque is all about. He pulls out of his jacket a lottery-ticket, triggering the reaction from tie-guy that we should check the results of the ticket in a shop nearby. Province-guy asks us for help in this endeavour, as he cannot read. He also tells us that when he got the ticket last week, his boss had tried to buy off his ticket for 10,000 USD, but that he had refused, to which his boss had cornered him and started to hit him with his leather belt. Now he was in Quito, on his own, without any acquaintances or any knowledge of the city.
I accept to accompany them to verify the lottery ticket, thinking province-guy doesn't fully trust tie-guy and wants a third party to witness. Tie-guy leaves us a moment alone to fetch a copy of the lottery-results of July 31st in the shop around the corner, while I stay with province-guy waiting in the street. Province-guy marvels at my ability to read and talks in the meantime about how his grandmother kept on insisting he'd be careful in Quito, because the city is full of malicious people, and that he was grateful to us for helping him. Tie-guy returns with a copy of the results, and my-oh-my, it turns out to be the winning lottery ticket, for the grand total of 200,000 USD! This made province-guy feel somewhat uneasy, what to do now, so he offered each of us 3,000 USD to accompany him and cash the prize money. Before accepting our help, however, he needed to know if we were able to provide for our daily meal, because his grandmother had told him only to trust people who can provide for their own daily meal. To which tie-guy says that he owns a shop nearby, in which he has 1,500 USD, and that he has some 5,000 USD on his bank account. I said that it was no-one's business how much money I had, to which province-guy replies that this is they way people in the province know how to truly trust someone. In fact, before coming to Quito, his grandmother had shown him how to do it, while pulling up her mattress and reveiling all her savings. Tie-guy backs up the story, urging me to understand that this is how people from the province reason, and that he'd go fetch his bank-records to proove his solvency. That was enough of fun and frolics to me, so at that point I wished them the best of luck and bode them farewell.
The two men really pulled of a great piece of very convincing theater, I must admit. There were always new elements added to the story that appealed to my goodwill and sense of empathy, such as the illiteracy of the province-guy lost in the big city, his boss hitting him with a belt, fear of being scammed by Dr. Luis, the hard-working shop-owner who offers to help province-guy. It took me a while to digest the whole story, but looking at it with hindsight, there were so many inconsistencies in the story, which I didn't take properly into account at the moment itself due to a feeling of compassion and the urge to counter the general tendency to consider any person asking you for something on the street as having bad intentions. But of course: why would the family of province-guy send him on his own, they sure must have some relative who can read and who could help him? Why would province-guy trust his boss and his pharmacist friend, after what his boss had done to him? Why telling he got the ticket last week, when the 31st of July was two weeks ago? Why insisting on me accompanying them, while it is obvious I don't know anything in relation to the matter presented? And for sure, the lottery results turned out to be a fake, a quick search on the official lottery website revealed.
I felt pretty stupid afterwards - after all, I had sensed from early on something wasn't right; I should have just walked away from the start. I was very lucky, indeed, that nothing bad had happened to me, because at some point in this story they would have pulled out scopolamine or some other rape drug, in order to rob me or inflict whatever other calamity on me. But I just couldn't help fighting the common-place scaremongering not to trust anybody on the street asking you for something. I guess this is one of the toughest parts of living here in Quito, the fact that your first reaction with inter-personal contact should be that of distrust instead of trust, also in circumstances that should generate trust. Even a secure, licensed taxi ride can turn into a secuestro exprés, taking you on a millionaire tour to get as much money as possible out of ATMs with your bank cards (true story!). I refuse to become paranoic, distrusting every single person on the street, because that would make life unliveable to me. I just hope there's a guardian angel out there inspiring me in time to run when I have to...
Now you see it, now you don't! Probably the second oldest profession in town... (
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