Unrest in the City

Tuesday after comida, about 3 p.m., I decided to take a longer route to class. After four hours of Spanish class, I felt like stretching my legs, browsing the selection at Amate books, and grabbing a cup of coffee at Nuevo Mundo. According to my host family, the scheduled events of the President were over, and so, as long as I avoided the Zócalo, I would be fine. I walked from my house down past parque Llano and over to Santo Domingo. I was in front of Amate books when I heard a series of what sounded like shots fired. I looked down Alcalá and saw 40 or 50 police officers, divided into seven or eight lines, marching up the street towards me, shields raised. Behind them, a cloud of smoke billowed, climbing up the street behind the crowd of police. I froze in place, standing on the sidewalk, until a police officer asked me, in Spanish, who I was. When I responded that I was a tourist, he told me to disregard anything I’d seen and to get as far away from downtown as I could. It was at this point that I noticed that the clouds of smoke were getting frighteningly close and that local citizens and vendors were beginning to turn and run. I quickly asked the officer which streets would be safest, to which he suggested I head north on Calle Porfirio Díaz. Following his advice, I joined the dozens of people running up Calle Matamoros. Cars were turning around on one way streets. I ran all the way until Mercado Sanchez Pascua, when it dawned on me that I was panting, crying, and shaking. I called Jonathan, our program director, who came and met me. From there, we drove to the offices of EDUCA, in the northern part of the city, to unite with the other students. We had a rather scatterbrained attempt at holding class there, before we were driven to our host families’ houses. My host family lives near the city center, and so I opted to stay at Maddy’s house, which is about a mile north of my house. Once we arrived at Maddy’s house, we were told not to leave and that classes were cancelled for the time being. Maddy’s mom made me tea, and we watched the national news to figure out what exactly had happened. It seems as though things have calmed down now though, and we do have class tomorrow.