I'm all about the common sense and over-protection when it comes to personal belongings (you don't survive the slums of Rio without it). I keep fake wallets*, have a steel-mesh knife-proof purse and portable safe, hidden money belts, door stopper alarms, and the more. But I never imagined I'd get robbed in my own room, in the middle of the night, especially not in one of the safest countries in the world.
But nevertheless, I got robbed, at 2am, in my own room, by some really crafty ballsy robbers. To be honest I'm not angry or scared, just impressed, if I were to give these thieves a grade I'd give them an A for ingenuity. The tale goes something like this:
It had been one of those evenings you come home exhausted, but with things to do so you fall in and out of sleep when trying to work. Without bothering to really prepare for bed in the day's clothes and the light on I would proceed to try to work on something only to fall asleep, a bit later get up and organize things, and fall asleep again.
At about 1:14am to be exact, I received a text message from my sister. It was an important one about her being in the hospital and a possible premature C-section this Friday (Stefanie, that baby better still be in there by Saturday. My niece is not being born without me!). I've been following the low-amniotic-fluid, early dilation ordeal the last couple of weeks so it wasn't a surprise, in my half-asleep state I read it and just put the phone down again by my pillow (I keep my phone next to my pillow so the vibration wakes me up, it's perpetually on silent mode).
10 minutes later I wake up remembering I have to reply to the message and I can't find my phone. Figuring that I probably just dropped it in my half-asleep state, I start searching all around for it. I get angry very quickly when I can't find things, especially at 1:30am, so I'm moving sheets, mattresses and books, cursing every deity in every language looking for the damn phone. And it's nowhere to be found.
Then I start thinking that maybe I dreamt the text message and start blaming it on the mefloquine (the malaria prophylaxis drug I'm on is infamous for its neurological side effects, possible psychosis aside, the most common side effect is very vivid dreams). I start pinching myself and walking around the house trying to trace back my steps of the evening in search of the phone. Nothing.
In that I remember that earlier I was setting out my things for the next and official final day of the program. My desk is against the window and I had set out a kente purse that Dan was buying from me the next day. That purse was gone, now I really think I've gone crazy, but I know that I had left that purse out, and it's nowhere in sight.
Then I see that the window screen has been slashed open at the bottom. (There are bars on the window so they can't actually come in that easily, thank God). It being 1:30am I don't know if that slash was there before, but I start wondering, is it possible? Did somebody slash the window and take it? Then it dawns on me that I had set out a pile of cash on the desk. Probably the only time I've ever left cash out. I had neatly piled it knowing the different things I had to pay the next morning. It was gone.
Then I really get it. I've been robbed.
Going back to the tale of the phone, I go to the other end of the window and sure enough, there's a slash there too. They took the phone inches from my face on my pillow. They probably used some kind of long stick with glue at the end or tongs. It was about 1:35am at that point. They had been quick and crafty, in the few minutes I dozed.
Waking up Granny she was shocked, in her 13 years of hosting dozens of students she had never had a problem like this. She says they were probably tracing me for awhile, seeing that I came and went from that house. She mentioned that about 10 years ago a neighbor, who also hosts foreign students, had a similar robbery.
At the moment we could only be glad that I was okay and they didn't harm me. Losing $60, an empty purse and an old phone really aren't that bad. I cursed having the light on, realizing that I made their job easier, but the next morning I would find that it probably saved me.
It turns out I wasn't their actual target, they robbed the house next door, but they didn't just slash the screen and take a couple of things, they bent window bars, broke in and did a full robbery. My guess is that they were probably armed if that was their line of attack, but seeing that my light was on and I was clearly not in deep sleep, they took what they could and went.
The next morning we also found that they quickly realized the purse was empty, and very nicely left it by the window, and they took the SIM card out of the phone and left that too. ( They might have taken an old broken phone, but at least they didn't take my SIM card with hours worth of call credit). The phone did have a sentimental value to it, it being my travel phone, it had every single contact of every single person I have met in all my trips, it was full of text messages of China and Brazil, like a time capsule. When I got to Ghana and activated the phone again I was so surprised that I could really write Portuguese so well, I kept them to remind myself I really was trilingual.
Today is the last day of the program,and what a special goodbye did I get, Ghana! But really, it was not a big loss. It could've been much worse. So many more important things in this world, and sometimes it takes a crafty ballsy late-night robber to remind you.
*If you get mugged and are asked for a wallet you then give the "fake" one with a couple of bucks in it, and all your actual money is somewhere else like your sock or bra.
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