How to face Sexual harassment

How to face Sexual harassment
To all girls who thought, at least once, that they were invisible to someone.
To all girls who are planning on traveling in Central or South America by themselves.

Have you ever felt invisible to someone? Have you ever wanted him to turn around and look at you, smile and say hi? At some point, I am pretty sure that it happened to all of you. Wishing that someone looks at you, smiles at you, tells you that you look nice and says good morning is only normal. I have already wished that too. But frankly, now, I only wish that everyone would not look at me, would stop saying hi and would not call me all these names that are normally nice to hear; Linda, presiosa, senora, bonita, etc. If I would be wearing a mini skirt with high hills, a transparent shirt and a sexy bra, I would definitely understand that they all look at me. But now, with my jeans, sport t-shirt, non-sexy Colombia sandals, AEHEC sweater, no makeup on and a crazy hairstyle, guys here are driving me crazy. No matter what I wear, it always ends up in the same remarks. It is even worst when they do these kissing sounds with their lips, when they look at you and move their eyebrows or when they walk near you for a couple of minutes so you would finally turn around.

Really, it might be a cultural difference. I heard that here, girls like it when guys call them names and stuff but really, I think it looks more and more like sexual harassment.

To live with this harassment, I developed a nice theory and a great getaway tip to be able to live with it every day. Trust me, it’s not always easy to be a girl in Nicaragua!

Now my theory is simple. There are different categories of guys. All of them do more or less the same thing but in different contexts. 

1-      1- The old lonely guy in quest of attention and in lack of sexual activity.

2-      2- The young man full of sexual energy who thinks that he is better than his friends.

3-       3- The drunk guy.

4-      4- The shy guy, not confident enough, who wants to prove himself that he can do it.

Let’s start with category 1. He is normally a really disgusting guy. He will stare at you a long time before saying anything but when you finally pass by, he will call you whatever dirty and will not stop until you are really far away.

There is category 2. The young men category normally hangs out with his friends. He sits on the boardwalk or on some house’s stairways, smoking (because everyone here smokes all the time) and chilling. They are usually more than three, all around the same age (between 15 and 30). They are single, married, have kids are don’t, it doesn’t really matter. The young man wants to prove his friends that HE IS THE BEST. It is sort of a contest… who will get my attention first? So they all stare, do weird moves with their lips or eyebrows... and then, when I pass by, one of them (the one who thinks he is the best) will call me first, and then, all others will go on. So the first one to call me will sort of win the contest... crazy hey?  

There is category 3. The drunk guy. He will look at you, call you name, kiss you, try to grab your ass, there is no limit to what a drunk guy can do. Walk as far as you can!

Finaly, category 4. The shy guy. He is really not that disturbing. He will look at you (not stare as he had never seen a girl before), call you one or two times, he will stop as soon as you pass by. The Shy guy is only really disgusting when he is really old, smells bad or bad looking. Otherwise, we can live with it.

Now, the getaway technique!!!! I want you girls to read carefully. It’s pretty useful and efficient if you are a girl traveling by yourself in Central or South America.

For all these categories, you have one really efficient solution: say Buenas Dias before they do. The main goal of this is to destabilize them. They are not used to get attention before they decide to say hi. Therefore, they are so surprised that they forget to call you names, or they only say Buenas Dias back, which is really not so bad.

Anyways, sometimes, with the Category one guy, you simply have to stare at them as soon as you can have eye contact and then, they will simply never say anything. The most difficult one is category 2. As I said, it is sort of a contest to prove to others than they are the best. Therefore, you cannot get away without being called but if you can spot who it the strong head in the group and say Hi before he does, you are good to go. No-one else will call you names. But if you are wrong, the strong head will over call you name to prove to all others that he is really the best one.  

And about the drunk guy category, you really cannot do anything. It si actually the worst one. Do not talk to him, do not look at him, do not walk close to him. IGNORE HIM!

That’s my world. That is how I succeed to walk in the street without feeling harassed every single minute of my life. I am not saying it is 100% efficient, but it certainly helps.

Oh, and another advise: Walk with a guy! It will, most of the time, help to reduce the callings.

So if you still feel that you are invisible to all guys, come to Nicaragua. Here you will be more than visible. You will become an attraction.