They say. . .

They say, bad things happen in threes. They say, you reap what you sow. They say, what comes around goes around. They say that for every door that closes, a window opens. They say, you have to take the good with the bad.

I have always wondered, who exactly are they? And how the heck do they know so much about life? Haven´t you?

Well for what it´s worth, in our experience during these last few weeks, we have discovered that "they" know what they are talking about.

For example, take the old addage that bad things happens in threes. Now, I am not particularly supersititious, though I do throw salt over my shoulder if I spill it and I do from time to time, knock on some wood. I mean, really, it can´t hurt right? I guess you could call me an agnostic when it comes to the oral traditions. It´s not that I am a staunch believer, yet at the same time, I am not completely willing to say ok, I don´t believe in fate or destiny or that things happen for a reason. But, I digress. I must return to things that happen in threes. I am sure you all remember the story of the mustard bird that got us on the streets of Quito? Well I guess we would have to call that number one, right?

It happened, nothing to major, upsetting but for the most part, we got off scott free. No money to speak of was stolen, no documents, we weren´t hurt physically. . .you get the picture. So you can imagine our surprise the following day when we went to pack up to leave Quito and lo and behold, there´s good ole number two. . . John´s ipod is gone. Poof. Disappeared. We searched high and low (and while I searched through my things and John pulled apart his own, I remembered him distinctly saying to me, "You know Jen, I am just not going to bring it. I don´t want to risk it getting damaged or lost or stolen." My response of course that changed his mind, "Then why do you own it if you aren´t going to bring it?" Ahh, hindsight). Anyway, back to the search. We looked and looked and looked everywhere we could think of, but for the life of us, there was no ipod to be found. Bad thing number two.

But again, really after being disturbed for the better part of half an hour, what could we do. An ipod is expensive. It´s valuable, sure. But really in the large scheme of things, not that important. So words of Buddah and the Dali Lamma in our heads, we let the ipod go, right along with John´s camelback and blissfully returned to our life on the road.

Of course, number three wasn´t far behind. That´s the way these addages and good ole Murphy´s law works. You know, when it rains it pours. The bread always fall butter side down etc. etc.

We had left La Chimba (the town that took me from city to country girl in a matter of minutes) for a few weeks after having met with the teachers and deciding that it was better for them if we started the English courses later in the month to give the municipality time to certify their time, and since we really have no binding plans, we readily obliged. So we set off for La Esperanza, another tiny village about two hours from La Chimba, thinking we would hike this great trail over a volcano to a volcanic lake back to the small market town of Otavalo. It sounded perfect. But after two days of rain and a sore throat and swolen glands on my part, we gave the idea up and decided to head down the mountain into the city of Ibarra.

Back in a relatively big city again, we headed down one of the main streets to find ourselves a hotel for the night. The sidewalks were crowded and thin and as we wove our way in and out of the throngs of hummanity, and before long five or six people separated me from John, our humongous backpacks making it impossible to walk two abreast.

That´s when I heard it,"Shit! Jen! Help me! Help me!" It had to be John. Not just because I heard my name, but really because who else would be yelling help me in English. I whirled around to see John throw his backpack on the ground and frantically begin to pat all of his pockets. "Shit. Shit. Shit. They got it. I can´t believe they got it. Shit."

"Got what? Got what? Calm down. I can´t understand you. What did they get? Who?

"Shit. My wallet. They got my wallet. There was a woman with a baby and I bumped her. Some guy bumped me and then I bumped her and now my wallet is gone. I cannot believe this shit!"

Still unsure if John had actually been pickpocketed or if he had put his wallet somewhere different, I stood there dumbly blinking, "Are you sure?"

"Yes!" he shouted already on his way back down the street to see if he could locate the guy who had stolen his wallet. (There it is, number three in the series in case you hadn´t been paying attention).

By then a small crowd had gathered and as I leaned up against a wall holding John´s bag, they began to talk all at once. "Las espitufas." "Sí claro, siempre lo hacen." Shaking their collective heads, wondering how once again this group had pulled it off.

"Subió al autobus." a young guy in a red jacket shouted, pointing to the bus pulling away from the curb.

"John," I yelled stopping him from going further down the street, "He´s on the bus. The bus. Go! Go! Go!" And just like that, John was off, like the wind chasing the bus. I wondered briefly how John would communicate with the alleged theives if they were really on the bus and if in fact, John recognized them, but dismissed it quickly since by now, the group gathered included three police officers who wanted to take a statement of what had happened.

Apparently from the comments going on behind me as I described what I knew of the events that had transpired, the event was well witnessed by every local shopowner and passerby. As it turns out, a small boy had cut John off in his path and upon stopping, a teenager had crashed into him from behind, shoving him into a woman with a baby in her arms. The woman gave John a dirty look and while John apologized and tried to explain what had happened, she lifted his wallet. Talk about irony. He apologizes to her as she steals from him. Good karma that is not. And I don´t think it is good things come to those who wait, nor what comes around goes around. But again, I digress.

John returned huffing and puffing, empty handed. They, along with his wallet, $50, a credit card, an ATM card and his driver´s liscence were gone. Poof. Like the camelback, like the ipod. Things happen in threes.

They say, bad things happen in threes. And frankly I believe them. But as I mentioned before they also say, when one door closes, a window opens and of course, you gotta take the good with the bad.

So we had taken the bad. (Three of them, to be precise, and really John had taken all three of them, though for the most part what happens to him, tends to affect me too.) And we were about ready to swear off all cities over 300 in size when our luck began to change. We were about to be offered the open window, the good that comes with the bad, the ying that goes with the yang.

That´s when our luck began to change. Initially, we didn´t get it. We didn´t realize that it was the universe´s attempt to restore our faith in humanity, or possibly in Ecuadorian city dwellers. The guy in red, who we later discovered to be called Edwin, offered to take us in his truck to look for the alleged "robbers," yet at that moment, throwing my backpack in some guy´s open pick up and having him drive us around a city we didn´t know to find a pair of thieves didn´t strike me as the most responsible thing to do in the world. The police seemed to think it would be a good idea, but even so, I resisted and defered to that small voice inside of me that said, "WHAT? Are you isane? He is probably one of them!"

So we didn´t go with Edwin. Instead, he went on his own and we proceded to get in a cab with another one of the witnesses. (We´ll call him William. We are not actually sure of his name, as he told it to us while we were still in shock, and later were too embarassed to ask again.) William took us to a local hotel where we stored our bags and then proceded to play tour guide for us the rest of the day. First, he helped us pick out fanny packs (I know, lame and too little too late, but heck if we were going to get robbed a fourth time.) Then he took us on the bus to a local laguna with a 10K path around it and some hiking trails leading up to the patron saint and guardian angel of Ibarra, Gabriel. He even paid for our taxi and bus fare. Of course, in the back of my mind, I couldn´t help but wonder, "OK, when´s the part where he takes out the knife, demands the rest of our money and kills us?"

But despite my cynical bouts of paranoia, that never materialized. What did happen instead was that he tooks later that evening over to Edwin´s bakery, where Edwin told us that he had been unable to get our cards back, despite the fact that he had spent time trying. He thought maybe they would return our cards for a reward, but the thought of paying the people who had stolen from us, to get our own things back didn´t really compute in our minds, so we just cancelled the cards and chalked it up to one of those things you just can´t control.

By then, William had left to go to work (turns out, he had forgone sleep to play tour guide for us and worked from 10 pm till 7 am that night.) We sat in Edwin´s bakery, recounting the rest of our day to Edwin and told him that in the morning we thought we would go back to the lake to go running. "I´ll take you. What time do you want to go?"

A million thoughts raced through my mind at once, "Are you kidding us with this? Were these guys for real? Were people actually this nice? Or was this still a scheme to get the gringos?" It was too hard to figure out, so we agreed to meet at 6 the following morning to go running around the lake.

So we took the good too. Why not? Sometimes, you just have to take that leap of faith and trust that the universe is taking care of things. Luckily for us, this time, it was. Edwin turned out to be one of the nicest people I have ever had the good fortune to come across. He didn´t just take us running, and then pay for our orange juice and then invite us to his bakery for free coffee and breakfast. Which would have been more than enough (Dayenu). Over and beyond what a stranger does for another stanger. (And still that nagging voice in my mind whispering, "No one is this nice. What does he want from us?")

No, the running, the juice, the coffee, the breakfast were just the beginning. Apparently, the running for me was not meant to be and after 20 minutes, I was in pain again, limping around the trail with Edwin, as John continued on. I told Edwin the on and off two month long story of my sore leg, and he insisted that after breakfast we go to get it x-rayed. He of course, accompanied us first there, then to the orthepedist,and then later, to the pharmacy to fill the large dose of anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxers and rest he had prescribed me. (Turns out, there are no fractures, but there will be no running or hiking for jenny for the next three weeks). He insisted on us staying with him and his family that night and, as if that wasn´t enough, he insisted on taking us to lunch and then to visit the crater lake in the middle of Volcano Cotacachi, Lago Cuicocha, over an hour´s drive from Ibarra. This guy was really too much.

This morning, on our way out of town, we stopped by the bakery to say good bye and he insisted on feeding us more coffee and breakfast (on him) and told us that he could give us a ride back up to La Chimba the following week when our job started. Seriously?

Just now while typing this, our cell phone rang. It was William (turns out, his name is William. Good for us for remembering correctly.), wanting to know how everything had gone yesterday and if we needed anything.

They say, what comes around goes around. They say, when one door closes, another opens. They say, you take the good with the bad.

You know what I think? I think, whoever they are, they´re right.