La Mordida...A Cat and Mouse story

La mordida is a Spanish word for ¨bite¨ (like what a dog might do). It also means something else--paying off the police.

Last night I was at a bar that stays open after the official close of business. Bars of this sort hire workers to hide outside and watch for local police. When the guard spots the police, he immediately alerts the bar mananger. Everything in the bar stops. The lights go out. The music stops. People stop talking.

Then the knocking starts.

The police know which bars stay open late. They need only to catch a bar in the act of operating and then extort a given amount of cash. SO, the police started knocking on the bar door and ringing the door bell. Their knocking and ringing, of course, is met with silence.

Sometimes the subterfuge works, and the police move on to the next bar. Last night it didn´t. The bar had to hand over 300 quetzales (about $40.00) No one gets arrested; there are no ¨official¨fines to pay for staying open late. One local I asked told me that each week a given bar has to pay up. It is simply the cost of doing business in Guatemala.