35. THIEF: A mistake and an encounter with South Africa's crime world

After our busy museum tour morning, we went to lunch at the Eastern Food Bazaar, a place and an experience I will never quite forget. Unfortunately. This was my encounter with the darker side of South Africa, one I knew existed, but one that I didn't experience personally until this fateful Friday afternoon.

After a delicious lunch of butter chicken and garlic naan, I was sitting in the upstairs room of this restaurant with my group of 20 fellow students plus TA and professor. I went to go speak to Isaac our tour guide, who were eating on a bench right at the bottom of the stairs by themselves. They were very friendly and interesting people, and I felt bad that they were all alone. I was at the end table, so I asked people to watch my stuff (never again). Before I got up, I made sure to carefully remove my camera from the back of my chair and put it on the table with my purse so it would be more visible to the people still sitting there. I also asked the people at the next table over to not let them clear my food. I wasn't done with my lunch yet. When I left, a man, pretending to be a waiter, came over to my table and started clearing the stuff from our table, but someone shooed him away. He sneakily grabbed my purse as he walked away, tucked it under his coat, and sprinted down the stairs, right past me, and down the street. I saw him, and I was pretty sure I saw my purse strap there. But that would be impossible. 16 people in my group were sitting upstairs right next to my stuff supposedly keeping an eye out for me. Why would he have grabbed one bag and not all 4 or the expensive cameras sitting on the table? So I sprinted upstairs to see what was up instead of down the street and after the man. Maybe that was the dumbest decision I ever made, but even had I caught up to him, he probably would've pulled a knife on me, and then what would I have done? I probably will never ever forget as long as I live the image of that man running down the street with my purse strap hanging over his arm. My purse was bright orange. Bright orange. And inside it was everything. Everything of value I have on this continent except fortunately my laptop and passport and camera. But my phone, my iPod, my wallet, my money, my debit card, my credit card, my student ID (Stellenbosch and NU), my drivers license, my insurance cards (South African and American), my sunglasses, memory cards, emergency contact cards, etc etc etc.

As soon as I realized it was actually gone, and the gravity of the situation hit me, I borrowed a friend's phone to call my mom and ask her to call my bank and credit card company to cancel both of those. Fortunately, that was within 3 to 5 minutes of the theft, so he wasn't able to use either before they were cancelled. My heart racing faster than I thought physically possible, I went to security at the restaurant and told them what had happened. The mouse on their computer wasn't working, and of course the security person assigned to watch the security camera footage was nowhere to be found, and so the manager took down my name, asked me to describe the man, after which, he told me that that man comes to the restaurant and tries to steal things every day. Ok, that makes sense to allow him back on your premises of your business after he does that...every day. Ugh! (I'm trying not to get worked up as I write this, but it's very frustrating. I can't even express how violated and vulnerable I feel, even now after the fact.)

Isaac, our tour guide, felt horrible, so he walked me to the police station to report the crime. There was of course a pretty long line and only one officer behind the counter taking statements. After a few minutes, Amanda (professor) called the driver because the rest of the group had continued on to the Cape Town Castle segment of the afternoon tour but they couldn't get in because Isaac had the tickets. So he had to leave to deliver them to my group.

It was a sunny, perfect Friday afternoon. I was in downtown central Cape Town, South Africa. I was alone. And I was sitting in a police station. A police station in South Africa. In a long line of people trying to report crimes. Reporting crimes for which no action will be taken. Reporting crimes that happen here so frequently that they are probably more common than parking tickets in Evanston. Giving verbal statements to a police officer who writes it down by hand since there's not a computer in the building. A waiting room with a room full of cells right next to it, because this is South Africa. One of the highest crime rates in the world. This is the real South Africa. Well it's all real I suppose. But this is the ugly, harsh reality. The one I wanted to pretend didn't exist. Or at least couldn't affect me.

After about twenty minutes of me sitting there in terror by myself with the line not moving a single person, Dilon (TA) walked in the station and I was so relieved to not be alone anymore that I felt the tears well up and start burning my eyes and rolling down my cheeks. He told me the restaurant had fixed it's security computer and he had seen the video footage and had watched what had happened. The whole thing was just as we thought and as my friends who had seen the man and told him not to take my food had described him behave (they hadn't seen him steal my purse obviously). Not sure how to deal with my tears, Dilon gave me a hug and apologetically told me he was ashamed of his country. I told him it was ok, that I was dumb and shouldn't have trusted anyone but myself, that I wasn't mad, just a little scared and panicked, and that I wouldn't let it ruin my experience in South Africa, and that I was just shaken a bit for the time being. We waited in line for a really long time, and then finally, I was called to speak to an officer. I told officer Ngomane what had happened, and (I'm pretty sure he didn't understand any of it) he told me to take a seat, he'd get some paper and fill out the paperwork and take my statement on a piece of scrap looseleaf paper (I wish I were kidding). He filled out the paperwork in a painfully slow way. He asked me where I was from and when I told him I was from America, he looked a little confused, so I told him 'USA...United States of America... the US... America' and he wrote on the document 'UK.' I said, no no, I'm from the US, and he looked at me and said, "US, UK, isn't that the same thing?" Great, I felt so much confidence in the system. I felt so violated and vulnerable, and in a place I thought should be reliable, helpful, comforting, and reassuring, I felt all my trust slide out from under me. I looked at Dilon desperately, and he just made a wincing face of embarrassment. Then I gave my statement again, but the officer modified it, writing about 6 sentences down on a piece of paper, starting with "I, Marie Keith, a twenty year old white female hereby make the following statement in English." and concluding with "I swear that the above statement is true so help me God." The thing was, he changed what I said. Even after I corrected him. It was so confusing. He couldn't spell about a third of the words in my statement. I don't know if English was not his first language or if he was just partially illiterate. When he asked me how to spell "stairs" I felt my heart let go completely to any idea of ever seeing my purse again. The whole process took so long, that my group was done with the afternoon's tours and sitting on the tourbus outside the police station. Isaac came in to see how we were coming along and then finally, we finished. They didn't do anything for me. So I just went and sat on the bus next to Smitha who had wisely taken my camera from me when I ran around panicking about my stolen purse. She just held my arm and I closed my eyes, determined not to lose it, not to cry.

I was on the verge of giving up all faith in people, when I realized I was surrounded by twenty people who were going to take care of me, make sure nothing bad happened to me and that I had whatever I really needed. Things could've been a lot worse than they did. They were pretty bad, but thanks to good people around me, I would survive this challenge too. Studying abroad in South Africa is all about learning experiences. And this one might top the list in terms of challenging lessons to learn. But even then, just a few hours after having everything taken from me by a thief, I was determined not to let him win. If he ruined my time here, he would win. If he ruined my trust in people, he would win. If he ruined my weekend in Cape Town, he would win. If he ruined my day, he would win. If he ruined my afternoon...well, ok, yeah he ruined my afternoon. But that's all I'm going to concede to him!

The next few hours consisted of me coming to terms with the fact that my stuff was gone for good and making purse stealing jokes every opportunity (you'd be surprised how easily it is to slip that into a conversation, there were so many openings for those jokes). It was a letting go process (one I still have to occasionally struggle with over a week later). Everyone was really kind to me, rapidly restoring my faith in people. I started thinking about the man himself, and growing very uncomfortable with that thought. I tried to convince myself that he wouldn't use the money or stuff for drugs or alcohol. I was praying that he was using it for food for himself and his family. Dear God, I sincerely hope that's what he did with it. He certainly made things difficult for me. But I also felt weird being so sensitive in this country. How many people I see every week in Kayamandi have nothing. And they don't have parents in America whom they can call for help, they don't have American bank accounts with enough (albeit for now unaccessible) money, they don't have 19 generous American friends to loan them as much money as they need to survive until they're back on their feet. But still, I was angry and felt so egregiously violated. I felt vulnerable and stranded in a distant country and alone, even though I was surrounded by people. I was scared. I was grumpy. I felt way too dependent on people. I realized - yet again, for about the millionth time in my life, that no, I am not invincible. (When will I learn it for good?!) I was tempted to skip out on dinner and lie in my hostel bed and cry and feel sorry for myself. But no, he would be winning. Plus, if I did that, everyone else would probably feel uncomfortable, and I didn't think that was fair. So I washed my face, painted on a smile, and then went to dinner.

I actually had a lot of fun at dinner - I sat with great people, and as Isaac told me later, every time he looked at me, I was laughing. He didn't understand how I could bounce back so quickly. Believe me, I was still upset inside, but even still, I managed to have a good time, laugh a lot, shed no tears, realize that yeah, things would be ok.

After dinner, we all went out in Cape Town for a bit. It was fun. I felt almost care free in a very weird way. I had nothing with me but the clothes I was wearing. Nothing to worry about. No way to communicate with the world. I realized more and more with every passing hour that my stuff was gone, there was literally nothing I could do about it, and I'm pretty sure the South African police system was going to do nothing about it either, so the faster I stopped worrying, the faster my life would return to 'normal.' He might have stolen my purse, but he didn't steal my fun!

That night as I went to bed, I felt a bit homesick (especially for my Dad who would've probably run after the guy instead of running back upstairs in the opposite direction from the thief like I stupidly did), thoroughly exhausted, utterly vulnerable, a little bit sad. But at least I was safe. And would be taken care of by my friends. It would be a lot of inconveniences, my most expensive mistake/learning experience while studying abroad (so far), and a painful one that would prove to haunt me for longer than I originally expected. But hey, now I had something to make an inappropriate number of jokes about, a great story to tell - how many people can say they got robbed in Cape Town? Oh wait, pretty much every South African who's ever been to Cape Town. Dilon and Isaac told me I was pretty much South African now, now that I'd been the victim of a crime. Dilon, Isaac, and Amanda have all been victims of theft in Cape Town. I'll never take the general sense of safety I usually have in the US for granted. Ever again. And I'll never take our police system for granted again either. This place redefines corruption and inefficiency. But don't worry, I'm still overall in love with the place. I'm not bitter. Still a little angry at Mr Thief, but I'm working on it. #lifelessons