mugged in broad daylight

For the second time in about a month, another volunteer friend was mugged walking the dirt road between my placement and the main road. And this time, she wasn’t even alone: I was there with her.

I was thrown off a bit by one guy’s Cameroon football jersey, which always puts me in a friendly, talkative mood. But as the three young thugs approached us, one pulled out a knife, and told us to give them our things. He was holding it rather weakly, without confidence, so I asked if he was really going to use it on us, and if he was crazy. But as I focused on the weapon (and how to get it out of his hand), I didn’t realize that my friend wasn’t close by me, and the other two guys started grabbing her bag.

I heard her ask if they could at least give her identification back, and as I turned around, I saw her wallet on the ground, and one of the guys grabbing it and running off. And so the chase began.

I sprinted after two of the guys for more than five minutes, through bush, over rocks and hills, but they knew where the paths were, and I wasn’t able to gain any ground. Eventually they made it over a big hill on the horizon line, and when I got there a few second later, they seemed to have vanished into the location’s tin houses.

I asked a couple guys if they saw where the thieves had run off to, but no luck. Then I realized that I had left my friend back at the road, with the guy who had the knife, so I started running back.

I walked up and down the dirt road a few times, but my friend was nowhere in site. Then, flying around the rugged terrain, I saw one of the work vehicles approaching, disappearing, and then pulling up beside me. She was inside, and explained that the security guard came running about ten seconds after I chased the guys, and the vehicle was there another ten seconds later. But in those first ten seconds, the thief with the knife managed to take off with her cell phone from the UK, while the other two had her favourite wallet, her bank card, volunteer identification, and N$50 (about $7 USD). It could have been worse (they didn’t even think to ask for my wallet), but it wasn’t a very nice way to finish her holidays.

When we were leaving the house before the incident, I asked her if she really needed to bring a bag with her; next time I’m going for an afternoon walk with someone, we’ll make it clear that the bag stays at home. Apart from that, I really don’t know what to do as a preventative measure. For me, being scared to go out and around is not an acceptable option.

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