Posted by hanlie | Posted in By The Way... | Posted on 30-04-2009
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know that crime is a big problem in South Africa. We live behind bars and electric fences and have satellite tracking devices in our cars.
Just the other day an acquaintance of ours was shot in his house. Fortunately he was only wounded, and since he’s a gun collector, managed to shoot and kill the perpetrator. We cheer when we hear stories like that!
I may have become more complacent since moving, because we now live in a security complex. I feel safe. I’ve stopped compulsively checking and double checking the doors, windows and gates. If something goes bump in the night, I figure it’s one of our cats, or even the neighbors’ cats (who love to visit).
Last week Lizana stayed with me for a few days and we had to venture into the city (Cape Town) so that she could purchase her airline tickets for her next trip. As usual, we set off in high spirits.
We have a tradition – when she visits me we always have Oriental food. Noodles, to be specific. In her neck of the (back)woods they don’t have Oriental food. So, when our breakfast smoothies wore off, we started looking for a Chinese/Thai/Korean restaurant. Everybody we asked said we should try Long Street, so we started walking up Long Street.
We walked. And we walked. And then we walked some more. After every block we’d say, “Let’s just try one more block...”
Suddenly someone shoved me as he tried to get past me. I thought Lizana was next to me, but it was a steet kid about 15 or 16 old.
I just knew.
I felt behind me to the zipper bag on my leather backpack and yes, it was open. My cell phone was gone.
While one kid had distracted me, another had grabbed my phone.
I spied Lizana coming up behind me (unbeknown to me, she had stopped to ask yet another person about a restaurant) and told her what had happened. She spotted some kids disappearing around a corner and followed them, but she could only stare them down. They saw her staring.
I knew there was no point in getting upset. When I bought that backpack (for New York) my mom still said that I must not put anything valuable in the back pocket, since I wouldn’t even know if someone stole it. Yes, Mom.
My first priority was to get to my cellular service provider to have the phone blocked. I didn’t even think about reporting the incident to the police. I’d been careless and these things happen all day every day across the country. The South African public doesn’t have much confidence in the police, I’m afraid. They’re understaffed, unmotivated and have limited resources.
We decided to turn back, since we were almost at the top of the street already and there wasn’t a chopstick in sight.
This is where the story turns bizarre…
We had just turned around when the kid who had shoved me, and a few others, approached me and asked me whether my phone had just been stolen.
I said yes.
He said that the police had caught the thief a block over and recovered my phone.
Just then a police car stopped beside us and the officer asked us if these guys were bothering us. Lizana told him what had happened, he got on the radio and then turned to me and said, “Are you Hanlie?”
Lizana and I cracked up laughing. I told him that I was indeed Hanlie and he said that we should go to the police station with him. Just as well he took us there, since I would never have found it on my own! On the way he told us that he had just stopped for a packet of chips and saw these streetkids talking to us.
I told Lizana that the police must have phoned someone on my phone to find out who I was. I said, “As long as they didn’t phone my dad or Craig! I’d never hear the end of it!”
When we got to the police station, the detective was waiting for me in the car park with my phone. He handed it to me and said, “Just phone Chris and tell him you’re okay.”
Chris is my dad. They had phoned the last number dialed… I quickly reassured him and promised to tell him the whole story later.
There were two detectives, who had been outside a suspected drug den. The cell phone thief was so intimidated by Lizana’s stare that he inadvertently stumbled into them. When he realized that they were policemen, he dropped the phone. Fortunately they were quick enough to nab him and recover the phone.
He had just been released that morning for cell phone theft. They can’t hang on to these guys because they’re kids.
I made a statement* and then one of the detectives drove us to our car. On the way he told us that they really do feel that they’re fighting a losing battle. Tik (the local name for crystal meth) has taken over the Western Cape. Even the small towns. It’s cheap, but the users still have to steal to buy it, resulting in an unstoppable tide of car break-ins, pickpocketing and all other forms of petty theft. Not a day goes by that we don’t read in the papers about the depravity and cruelty of these addicts. Meth really is an awful drug. And I feel sorry for the police, who don’t have the tools or the manpower to do anything about it.
Lizana and I got the hell out of Dodge and had a very late lunch at the Chinese restaurant 2 km from my house – safe in our little corner of suburbia again.
* While I was making the statement, Craig phoned and asked where we were. I told him we were at the police station. Immediately worried, he wanted to know why. I told him that my phone had been stolen. He was quiet for a moment and then he said, “Bullshit! You’re talking on your phone!“ You can’t get anything past that man!
