Just last night, I was saying to my housemate that it’s strange I haven’t been mugged yet. Nothing stolen, even. No crime whatsoever–and it’s not like I’ve been hiding at home for five months.
Today, ready to run after after an early morning exam, I decided to deviate from my typical routes through the leafy suburbs and go towards town on Main Road–broad daylight, lots of people around, nothing to be afraid of. On my way back, passing by a corner, a guy knocked me down out of nowhere and grabbed my iPod, so fast that I barely remember what happened. I shrieked and scratched at his eyes, but he was gone in a flash, running down a side street with a gang of boys. Rather than afraid or shocked, I mostly just felt angry, and screamed expletives at the departing youths.
I knew I’d passed a police station on the way, and so ran there and asked where I could report a robbery–apparently people get stuff back sometimes if the offender is picked up for some other reason. Unfathomably, they must have had better things to do than help white girls stripped of their expensive electronic equipment. After being directed to various desks by different people in uniforms and waiting for about a half an hour, I gave up and left.
What do I have to say about this? Not much, I guess, aside from the fact that it’s going to be hard to go without my podcasts until I find a replacement. The other letdown, though, is that my feeling of invulnerability has disappeared. I can no longer say, “South Africa? Yeah, don’t worry about it, all the warnings are just paranoia.”
In other words, I’m just like everyone else.
