Witnessing my first robbery

I am very lucky where I live because I am close to the biggest public university and because I have access to all the university buses. I don't have to go to downtown and change buses to get to school. I just walk to the university, and take the bus that passes my school.

When I first moved here, my Tica family warned me about the neighborhood. Yes, they are a little more careful than I am. I was warned do not walk around at night and stay off of the railroad tracks at all times-NO MATTER WHAT!! She said she witnessed people get robbed there all the time.

The railroad tracks of course are the shortcut. There is a high school back there, a sidewalk, houses, businesses. Why should I be scared? It is broad daylight. Apparently the thieves in Costa Rica do not care about that.

I was walking home from my bus, on the railroad tracks, with my friend, Elizabeth Taylor, yes that is her name! We saw the two guys standing there talking and thought nothing of it. They started walking in front of us and toward two other girls that were walking toward us. Now they were pretty far in front of us. They bumped into the one girl and slowly started taking her purse off. We didn't even realize what was going on until she started yelling Hey Hey!! Then about one minute later she took off running after them. They thieves got on the bus right at the end of the sidewalk, brilliant move! They were forced to give her back her purse and get off the bus, and they just ran away. No one stopped them, or even checked them to see if they took her stuff. She looked foreign too. The funny thing was, there were police right behind us on the railroad tracks too. They turned the other way. No one stopped to help these girls. If I had been alone like I usually was, I probably would've been the one that was robbed. I think I will take the advice and stay off of the railroad tracks now.