Morning Mugging

I was getting a lift to the bank with Cathryn today. She drives this South African version of an El Camino-it's low to the ground and like a car in the front but has a pickup bed with a cap in the back. The Middlebury womens' ultimate team used to sing this cheer about the El Camino...the front is like a car, the back is like a truck, the front is where you drive the back is....well anyway, Cathryn and Chris have an upstart landscaping business here in Dar and every morning she drives around and picks up her staff at the dala stops and delivers them to the work sites. So this morning I was along for the ride because it sucks walking along the flooded roads to catch the dala myself. The crew had just loaded themselves into the back and we were off to drop them at the site. We were stopped at an intersection, waiting to turn when a man ran up beside the car, reached through the open window and ripped Cathryn's gold locket from her neck. It happened so fast that by the time she screamed, the man was across the busy road and long gone. We have another friend, Luis, who is also from South Africa where crime is bad, and whenever we're in the car with him he's always telling us to put our bags or whatever on the floor. I've always complied but sort of felt he was being a bit paranoid. Apparently not. I can't believe something this actually happened. Cathryn drove on to the first site and when she got out othe car her hands where shaking and she showed me the huge red scratch marks at her neck where he grabbed at her. The necklace wasn't super valuable but it was a going away gift from a friend in South Africa, something to replace a similiar necklace from her mother that she had lost in an armed robbery in her apartment in Johannesburg shortly before moving to Tanzania. At the site, she told one of the guys that worked there what happened. He said that over the weekend someone grabbed a cell phone off someone at the very same intersection and the thief was caught by a mob of civilians and beaten to death. We don't know if that is true- I've heard tales of violent mob justice in this country but I have a hard time imagining the passive, non-confrontational Tanzanians beating someone to death over a cell phone. The whole incident really doesn't compute with me. I definitely scope out the scene and hold my bag tightly when I walk down the street but I haven't had any incidences or even seen anything that makes me think that could happen here.

So Cathryn said she thought she should go to the police station to report it. Not that she thought anything would be done about it, it certainly won't, but just for the sake of crime statistics. I've heard enough about the police and experienced enough of the bureaucracy to think that doing that would be a complete waste of time but I guess Cathryn is a better samaritan than I. She dropped me at the bank and went to the police station. So I got the rest of the story tonight when she got home. Really this part is just as crazy as the mugging itself. The woman at the station pulled out a blank piece of newsprint, got a ruler and made lines on the paper creating a form. She wrote up the headings with lines, wrote out by hand a statement about the government act of whatever that says who knows what and then questioned Cathryn about her personal information including her religion and marital status. She made some more lines and went to dictate Cathryn's statement. Cathryn asked if she could write it. No that is against procedure. So Cathryn started her statement, which the woman didn't take word for word but rather injected all sorts of qualifiers into the story. Cathryn said well I didn't say that and she said no this is procedure. This is how it get should be written. Having been in Tanzanian long enough to know a losing battle, she gives up and lets the woman write it out how ever she wants. That should be the end of it but apparently no. They must go to the scene of the crime! Cathryn asks why? Procedure. Way more patient that I would be, Cathryn drives a police officer to the scene of the crime in her car. He inquires about her religion...well specifically what kind of Christian are you? ...and her marital status along the way. He asks for her phone number. She says its on the form. No, he wants her phone number because he wants to take her out on a date. Isn't that nice. I'm pretty sure that falls into the category of sexual harrassment in the good old U.S. of A but anyway we are clearly not there. Absolutely nothing useful happens at the crime scene and the officer wants a ride back to the police station. She tells him to walk and gets on with her day.