Theft, it sucks!
Trip Start
Mar 18, 2010
1
61
65
Trip End
Dec 30, 2011
Manzini, Swaziland
Monday, August 9, 2010
'I've been robbed so many frickin' times on this continent; I only keep valuables up my butt. Don’t waste your time'
Do you think it would work?
To date my record is looking something like this:
Nigeria: USB memory stick thingie, day two in on 20th March 2010 from the hotel were we were presenting.
Nigeria: suitcase lock smashed and two pairs of jeans in June on my way out of the country.
Nigeria: Nokia phone charger, by outward hand luggage screener. Apparently charger cables 'are no longer allowed on planes’, funny because he let my laptop and iPod chargers go.
Kenya: entire camera bag taken after the van window was broken during the 60 seconds it took to pay for petrol. I suppose there's a reason there's a movie of the same name
Jo'burg Airport/Swaziland (99% likely to be Jo'burg): nothing stolen but new suitcase (a replacement for the one the Nigerian’s cocked up) ruined by the lock being twisted off after I had to let my hand luggage be put in hold because we were flying on a prop plane to Swaziland. Todd's bag was also ruffled.
I have to confess, the constant vigilance and paranoia about where my stuff is taking its toll. I misplaced my clicky click camera last night. I'd put it in a different pocket in my briefcase as we left the office. I got back to my room and I looked for it. I searched. I took everything out of my overnight bag and my briefcase.
My blood started to run cold. Then I broke into a sweat. I started cursing. Logic told me it was there, I'd used it that afternoon to take photos of the flowcharts that had been built.
When did I see it last?
Had the room been left unattended?
I found it. But I'm becoming used to second guessing, expecting things to disappear, panic is becoming a default setting.
I don't like it.
I don’t like it all.
I'm not sure I like were it might head. Will I become blasé about theft like the Nigerians locals did when I them about the stamps purchase 'oh, she probably fancied a nice lunch', or the South Africans, 'it's the airport, you should expect that'.
I’m sorry, but at an airport I expect to check my luggage and receive exactly what I sent into the system to come out. I don't expect to hand in a brand new piece of hand luggage at the bottom of the stairs five minutes before take off and pick up the same piece of hand luggage up at the bottom of the stairs five minutes after landing to find the lock on the it cut and mangled with the padlock (still locked) chucked inside, my knickers ruffled.
I don't expect a post office, government employee to charge me two thirds more than required just so she can have a nicer lunch than usual. I don’t expect a customs official to use passenger hand luggage as a shopping centre that comes to him and charges nothing for its goods.
I expect, and I accept that I may be talking like a spoiled national of a developed nation right now, but I expect to NOT to be ripped off by people in positions of trust. London Heathrow manages it. Atlanta does it and so does Sydney. All bigger and busier than Johannesburg, and certainly Manzini; that incidentally had school groups touring the runway. You can travel with a hard box full of camera equipment, check it and know it would arrive without being tampered with. You can accidently chuck your jewellery into your check luggage and not have to worry about it once you realize it got checked by mistake. I know this, because I have done it.
How did they solve this problem at Heathrow and the US? I’d be interested to know. Do they pay their staff more? Is each employee screened as they leave work? Do the people of the nation find this behavior unacceptable and there by not tolerate it?
Call me sentimental for having romantic ideas about the honesty of the human race, call me old fashioned but I've had life experience theft gives you, now while travelling and at home (home invasion, August last year).
But I swear. If I get robbed again I really am going to go postal on someone's arse!
