Experience with theft and 'bureaucrazy'
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