Last night I slept with don pancho


Chapter 9: Switchblades and Cupcakes



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Chapter 9: Switchblades and Cupcakes



“Do you think one of your brothers would lend me a gun?” I asked Javier over breakfast. It was later that year and we were at our kitchen table in Canada looking out the window as squirrels carried seeds from the maple tree to their nest.

In just three weeks we’d be returning to Guatemala. Despite all the discomforts of my aborted first visit to Guatemala, the scariest experiences had faded from memory once I was back in Canada exploring the recipes I’d jotted down during our visit. Some dishes, such as salpicon were real discoveries, while others were complete flops. With every bite came a new level of satisfaction and understanding. I was ready to go back.

But with travel advisories, armed bus hijackings and the violent rape of two American tourists in the news, this time I wanted to be prepared. I knew I couldn’t take a can of mace with me, but surely there was some way I could prepare.

“Maybe a lady’s pistol?” I mused, imagining something small I could stash in my purse. Something for emergencies.

Javier sighed. “Forget it. You’d just shoot yourself or get yourself shot.


Even my brother who’s been robbed a dozen times doesn’t carry a gun.”

I considered my options. There was a Russian Fight Club down the street and, while I had no doubt the club’s stern-faced instructors were well qualified, I doubted whether even the legendary fist-fighters of Kazan could teach me much in three weeks.

“How about a switchblade?” I asked scooping a second muffin out of the tin and onto Javier’s plate. Baked goods were one of my favourite tools of persuasion.

“Well,” said Javier, taking the bait “Maybe I could get Oscar to teach you.”

Oscar was also from Guatemala and that’s where the resemblance between the two ended. Oscar was a foot taller, 50 pounds heavier and with his shaved head, broad shoulder and muscles bulging out of his white T-shirt, he had a Bruce Willis look that garnered him a bevy of female admirers. He was also Javier’s closest friend. I most often saw him raiding our kitchen’s freezer compartment for baked goods to carb up, so I didn’t think of him as a lethal weapon. But he would be perfect.

He was certainly qualified. He had a black belt in karate, had undergone Israeli combat training and was skilled in weaponry. When he wasn’t working on advanced security clearance assignments, he took CPR lessons and studied criminal psychology at college. He also had an insatiable sweet tooth, so a tin of cupcakes would work as an incentive.

“Great idea,” I said to Javier. “But where can I get a knife to practice? Switchblades are illegal in Canada.”

“Just use a knife like this one,” said Javier, pointing to the butter knife he was using to slather jam on his muffin. “Or maybe the oyster shucker.”

He took one look at the disgusted look on my face. He wasn’t taking me seriously.

“I’ll get Oscar to call you.”


Oscar called me that same afternoon. “I hear you want to learn some self-defence.”

“Well, not really. I just want to learn how to use a knife”

“To wound or to kill?” he asked.

I hadn’t really thought that far. “I want to be able to do enough damage to stop someone completely.”

“I can teach you how to disable someone using a twig. You don’t need a knife. You could even use a paleta from the kitchen.”

I couldn’t imagine fighting anyone off with a wooden spoon so after some insisting, Oscar agreed to come to teach me how to use a real knife. He even offered to give me some instruction in floor combat.

“Did you say you were baking muffins?” he asked before hanging up.
The next morning I woke up early and made a dozen rhubarb muffins with streusel and walnut topping. For good measure, I also made a pineapple upside-down cake, one of Oscar’s favourites.

He arrived mid-morning dressed in gym pants and a black T-shirt instead of his usual white one. That meant he was ready for serious training so I changed into yoga gear. Javier, who was there for the muffins, sat at the kitchen table, dressed in plaid loungewear.

“Expect some pain,” said Oscar, assuming a crouch stance. “We’ll begin with blocking moves.”

Pain? I felt rather silly. After all, we were in the middle of my kitchen. I followed his lead and tried to block his moves with my arms as he instructed. Within minutes my forearms were stinging and red with welts. His arms were like battering rams.

“Isn’t it time for some muffins?” I asked. Javier took my suggestion and helped himself to a second but Oscar loped to the cupboard and dug around in the cutlery drawer. We were moving to weapons training. Instead of a knife, he held a wooden rice spoon from Malaysia.

“I’m going to learn to kill with a wooden spoon?” I couldn’t help asking. I now felt doubly ridiculous.

“The spoon will serve as my gun,” he said, standing behind me with the “weapon” pointed in my back. “You’ll learn how to pivot, block the knife out of your way and disable me.”

I stood still, hands by my side, and listened.

“If attacked, you’ve got a split second to decide whether to give in or fight. Once you’ve made your decision, you’ve got to commit to it 100%. Otherwise your boost of adrenaline will disappear and you’ll be too wobbly to do anything. Your first punch has to do major damage or you’re dead.”

The US Embassy’s list of Recent Crime Incidents Involving Foreigners had several incidents of tourists who’d been kidnapped while using ATMs. I also thought of the two American tourists whose car had been stopped on the highway near Santa Elena Barillas by armed men and how the women had been separated from their male companions, taken to a deserted country road and gang raped. Oscar’s scenario of fighting back with a stick wasn’t so far fetched and could be useful.

“Pivot, block, punch the perpetrator in the face, take control of the gun,” he said, demonstrating the move. “Don’t focus on my face, lunge with your body and aim for the wall behind my head. Hit hard.”

My first efforts were haphazard. I didn’t feel like a killing machine. I felt self-conscious throwing punches at Oscar.

“I’ll take the gun,” said Javier, grabbing the rice spoon and stepping behind me.

I whirled around and lunged with simulated fury. Because Javier was shorter than Oscar, I miscalculated and punched him on the side of the face with my fist.

“Ow, you hit me in the teeth,” he said, shaking his head.

“Good job, much better,” said Oscar, encouraged by my new-found enthusiasm. He positioned me for more advantageous access to Javier, who was looking less keen than earlier, and we turned the spoon around to do double-duty as a knife.

I continued to use Javier as a punching bag until we were worn out and the muffins were gone.
The next week, I was grateful for those self-defence lessons. Two masked men broke into Thelma and Daniel’s fortress of a home and tied Marilyn, who was home early from school, to a kitchen chair. They cleared the house of TVs and anything of value. No-one in the neighbourhood saw or heard anything. Marilyn was traumatized but not physically hurt. I floated through the days before our departure in shock, trying to find comfort in the details. The outcome could have been much worse. How would I react in that scenario?

I wished we had more time before we left for Guatemala. There was a whole tray of weaponry waiting in the kitchen cutlery drawer.



Recipe: Oscar’s Bran Muffins


At breakfast in Guatemala, people eat champurradas, moon-shaped cookies that harden as they age until they resemble biscotti. The rock hard cookies, part of the Guatemalan pan de manteca collection of breakfast breads and pastries, are then dunked in coffee, tea or hot chocolate or even crumbled and soaked in milk to be eaten like cereal. Once I saw how much lard was packed into one champurrada, I convinced both Javier and Oscar to switch to bran muffins, which although they too have plenty of oil are packed full of fibre. They still love their champurradas but this recipe adapted from Phipps Dessert in Toronto has made a convert out of them and the most committed Guatemalan cookie lovers.

Phipps Bran Muffins

Makes 12 very large muffins

2 cups plain yogurt

2 tsp baking soda

1 cup brown sugar

¾ -1 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

2 cups natural whole wheat flour



2 cups all-purpose flour

4 tsp baking powder



Method

  1. Place yogurt in bowl, stir in soda

  2. Blend sugar, oil and beaten eggs in a second bowl

  3. Mix bran, flour and baking powder in a third bowl

  4. Alternately add yogurt mixture, and flour mixture to egg mixture, ending with flour mixture. Mix well and spoon into greased or paper-lined muffin tins.

  5. Bake 325F oven for 25 minutes or until done.







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