Experience with theft and 'bureaucrazy'

JAKARTA (JP): Sometimes it is true what you read in the newspapers. Like for instance those recent warnings about petty theft being on the increase.

Last Monday night, when returning from a dinner with some guests that were staying at our house, we found our place rocked by some nasty robbery which had messed up the entire place, smashed two doors and got off with, amongst other things, the guests' wallet and cash.

Not mine, because I had learnt after the first robbery some three months ago not to keep any valuables in the house. But as one can't walk around the whole day with one's camera's and CD player around the neck (certainly not in a tropical country), the thieves also got away with those items.

Besides the mess, broken doors, glass everywhere, the whole affair made us spend a lousy night in the police station being eaten by mosquitoes and subjected to 100,000 questions, and an early morning with the people from the RT (the local neighborhood watch - it makes you wonder what exactly they are watching though). They said they knew who did it but couldn't get him yet.

When I gave them that me-not-understand-look, one of them stepped forward and showed me my own dear little camera! He explained that they caught a man who'd already bought my (once about US$200) camera from the thief (for less than Rp 30.000 to add insult to injury!) and that they were going to hand both the guy and the camera over to the police.

By then I was getting into quite a murderous state and asked them to hand it over to me, now, immediately! Without much success though. My camera ended up with the police, who told me that they would keep it as 'a piece of evidence'.

Very nice indeed, to have some evidence.

But sometimes it is even nicer to have a camera.

So my next mission (headache) was to get it out of the police hands.

So I asked my office what to do. They finally advised me to get some help from this poor old fellow who happens to sit on a chair near our gate in a uniform which should scare trouble makers away (not very successful, somehow he rather seems to attract the species).

The guard didn't seem too honored with my request for assistance, but anyway, he started traveling to and fro the police office.

Every day, when entering the gate, I gave him this 'How About IT?' look.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow. Every day the same answer. The police wanted to keep it. The police needed it as evidence. The police were going to keep it till the case was closed.

All we could do was 'ask permission to borrow IT for a while'.

What?! My boss turned purple and blue. A letter was prepared that we wanted to borrow IT. NOW.

Poor fellow in uniform went back with letter.

Commandant not there. Commandant too busy.

Commandant out of office.

Till finally word came: Commandant wants to see The Girl.

Aha! So poor fellow in uniform jumped on his shiny bike, zigzagging between the trucks and taxis, and took me all the way to the police station.

Not that he was a good driver. At least, not in my eyes. He himself though seemed to think that he, reaching his 70's, could still swerve and waltz his bike like half a century ago.

At the point he was about to sandwich us between two school buses, I started to wonder if being crushed by a bus would be as horrible as it looked, and if so, if one little Olympus Camera was worth it.

But, and let that be our moral for today, one should never despair and after rain comes sunshine and a Japanese Product should be cherished till the end, etc etc.

So for some divine reason I didn't get crushed to pieces by the school buses, nor did I become unpleasant in the police station.

Thanks to all of that, the very efficient and trustworthy policeman might have decided that it was going to be a bit difficult to keep my camera for his son's birthday. And so, and here comes the happy end, I walked out of there with My Camera, hurrah!

Of course, he wouldn't have been an efficient and trustworthy policeman if he hadn't made me sign this letter stating that I was only borrowing it and would return it at their request whenever they needed it.

But then, and let that be our last lesson, one shouldn't focus too much on details.

-- Camilia Berghmans