Mucha Policia

I thought my start to the day was exciting as I woke up and noticed a millipede crawling up the wall of my bedroom. He had apparently wandered into my room through the window. I love millipedes and decided to name him Emiliano (after the revolutionary hero, Emilano Zapata). I went outside in my shorts, t-shirt and bare feet to get some soil for Emiliano´s new home. Upon stepping out of the courtyard I noticed that heavily armed police were starting to file past me in the direction of the other building. They had some rather serious looking automatic weapons and handguns too. Two officers were parking trucks to block the exit (clearly to prevent the bandidos from escaping). None of them seemd surprised to see me or made any attempt to get me to go back in and still a little stunned from having just woken up, I continued to walk over to get soil from the garden around the pool. As I started back to the courtyard, I noticed that more police were filing in and a number of police in full riot gear were in formation blocking the exit from behind their shields. And I thought a millipede was exciting. Sadly the excitement ended without any shooting as they waited about an hour and left as quietly as they came. Later the guy who opens the gate told me "There was a problem in the other building." He added that there was "sufficient police present". Apparently he is a master of understatement. A gang of bandidos with rocket launchers and a tank would have had a tough go at escaping our apartment complex. Although I had Kris´camera ready, I did not take a picture as it is generally inadvisable to take pictures of police in foreign countries. I figured I would get a few photos if they started shooting as they would not notice me taking pictures. There were too many police everywhere to be able to take a picture from the balcony without being noticed. In fact the guy at the gate told me there had been thirty police.

Emilano buried himself in the soil and I have not seen him since this morning. It was just another day in Tuxtla Gutierrez.