Peruvian doors are built a little different than most in the States. When a front door closes in Peru, it locks automatically. There is no way to unlock it and then close it with it still being unlocked. Once it’s locked, it’s locked. This safety factor is a great blessing at times, but on this particular day it turned out to be a nightmare. I usually take my keys with me anytime I go out the front door in case it closes accidentally. This day, however, I was not planning to go outside. I was merely picking up the front doormat. Christmas had passed and it was time to get the reindeer off the front step. When I picked it up, I realized how dirty it was and decided to beat it against the tree in the front yard. I beat it a few times and then heard a very large SLAM behind me. As my eyes began to widen, and realization sank in, I turned to see that my fear was confirmed and I was in a world of trouble. The door had in fact closed on me.
This may not seem like a huge problem, but let me explain a little more about the situation. We have a front yard that is surrounded by a very large concrete wall. It also has a locked gate in the front. Without keys to get into the house, I also could not get out of the yard. Without a phone, I would be stuck there until someone happened to come along. This would likely be a very long time, as my roommate was out of town and the apartment above us was vacant. My only options were to wait for someone to walk by and allow me to use their phone, to try to find a way into the house (aka break into my own house), or find a way over the wall so I could get help. The other problem with this was that I was barefoot and had no money to make a phone call at a pay phone. I was baffled.
My first attempt was to try to break into my house. Windows here are covered with bars. My front window was open but the bars were in the way. I determined that there was no way I could fit through the bars and they definitely were not budging. If I ever got back into my house, I could rest easy knowing that no one was breaking into my house through the front window. The stability of the bars led me to my next option.
There are two windows, one right above the other, on the front of the house. There is also a vine going down the side of the house. Knowing that the bars were very stable and able to hold my weight, I decided to climb the side of the house, using the vines and the bars on the windows, to see if I could get onto the roof. From the roof there is a staircase that leads to the backyard. I knew that my backdoor was open and unlocked (this one would stay unlocked even when closed). It just might work. I should also interject here that I am slightly afraid of heights. Not completely afraid obviously because I did decide that climbing to the roof was a good idea. But afraid enough that one story off the ground, my legs started shaking and threatened to give out underneath me. Not good!! I prayed my way through this harebrained idea and discovered that there was no way to get up and over the front of the house and onto the roof. Between the plants in the way and the lack of a ledge to get a grip on, there was no way this redhead was getting onto the roof. Using the vines and the bars again, I climbed down. I found another window that could have been a possibility to climb and give me better access to the roof, but the bars guarding that one were not stable at all. Plan failed … what’s next?
I began looking around the yard for options for going over the wall. I found a little hole in the wall just a little higher than what I would need to use as a foot hole to scale the wall. I was still shaking from trying to climb the house, so I had to calm my nerves a bit. I then jumped up, locked my hands on the top of the wall, and used the added distance off the ground to put my foot in the hole. Using the hole as my step, I managed to pull myself up the wall and swing my legs over. Once I reached the top, however, I realized it was an incredibly long drop on the other side. I managed to hang down the other side and walk myself down the wall. (The wall had Sandi’s dirty little toe prints going down its nice white color.) Finally I was out of my locked yard. But now what?
I tried ringing the doorbell for the neighbors. We have an apartment building next to our house. I tried ringing every apartment. Either no one was home or no one wanted to help the shoeless girl who had just climbed over the wall. I tried the neighbors on the other side, also with no luck. I finally found the security guard that rides around the neighborhood and explained, in my horrible Spanish, what had happened. He called others that he works with who came with a ladder. They went over the wall again, used the ladder to climb onto the roof, went down the stairs and through the unlocked backdoor, and let me back in. Praise the Lord for security men and their ladders!
It was quite the adventure. I came away with lots of bruises and scratches from climbing walls, not to mention dirt all over me from the vines and plants I encountered during my climbing. But I learned a very important lesson … always take your keys with you, even if you’re just going outside to pick up a doormat. You never know when you’re going to get locked in your yard!
