Too Many Guns in Guate

In the brief two months I've lived in Guatemala City, I've seen two people in road rage incidents pull guns on other motorists right out in the open! The second time occurred last night while I was in the passenger seat of my friend Michelle's car waiting to pull into a parking garage and go to one of the clubs downtown.

There was a short line of cars waiting and a small, tan car tried to bud in the front of the line. The black Volkswagon Jetta in front of us was having none of it and we watched him inch forward and make it difficult for the car to slip in, but the tan car somehow managed to get the nose of his car and eventually his entire car into our lane. We were observing the game and chuckling about it when the driver of the Jetta got out of his car. He was a tall, slender guy in his early 20's dressed in a button-up dress shirt and jeans.

I had a feeling things were going to get ugly because a month ago I witnessed a motorist on the main avenida pull a gun on another motorist simply because he had been beeped at for cutting him off. And when I say beeped at, I mean a short, little beep to let him know he was there. The man who was beeped at stopped his car, blocking two lanes of traffic, and started screaming at the other driver, lifting his shirt and threatening the other man with a handgun he had stuffed in the front of his pants. I thought he might shoot him, but thankfully he got back in his car and sped away. This happened at 7am on a weekday morning as I was waiting to be picked up for school by Ariana, my Spanish teaching counterpart.

Because of the previous incident, I wasn't surprised or too worried when I saw the young Jetta driver reach into his car to get his handgun and start flashing it around and threatening the other driver with it. The Jetta driver's girlfriend got out of the car while on her cell phone and I had initially thought she was going to leave, as any smart girl should and tell this idiot to take a hike, but instead she seemed to get in on the action.

The tan car driver intelligently decided to get out of line and leave the scene. The Jetta driver stood in the middle of the road, flashing the handgun around and then he and his girlfriend jumped in their car and speed off, following the tan car.

Michelle and I looked at each other, happy they had left, but at the same time wondering what was going to happen with these maniacs. We later saw the Jetta driver and his girlfriend - they must have returned to the parking garage after all.

Not a good idea to get angry in Guatemala - you never know what people are going to do.