The whole situation was strange though.
First of all, there was both a fence and bushes in between where I was
sitting and the street, there were 15 of us at dinner and no one saw
anything, my purse was a few inches from me at all times, and the
restaurant had a guard out front. But despite all that, I was still
robbed. Luckily I had taken out most of my money before going out, so
only about $15 was stolen, but the ATM card was a bigger deal. I
never thought the pickpocket would actually use the card, but the
thought of having to go through the beaurocracy at the bank was a
terrible thought.
Luckily my PC bosses were still around,
so they helped figure out what to do. The owner and guard thought
they knew the pickpocket...so the owner said he would watch out for
him and try to talk him into giving my stuff back. The owner, a
really nice French man, felt so bad and said he would call me if he
heard anything. So I called our security officer and then went back
to the hotel since there was nothing else to do that night.
The next morning we started our
training, but I skipped out on a few sessions to go to the police
department. I was really lucky that I happened to be with Peace Corps
during this whole fiasco because I couldn't have done it by myself,
and it was nice to have a PC car and driver to take me to run
errands, not to mention help me speak Malagasy. Going to the
police and the bank made me realize how much Malagasy I still don't
know! I couldn't answer 90% of the questions I was asked, so thanks
PC for being my interpreter.
Anyway, I spent about an hour and a
half at the police station handwriting a declaration, taking it to
make a photocopy across the street, watching the police officer type
my declaration into the computer, having him print it out and then
use a typewriter (they still exist here!) to add stuff to the printed
form...(I have a few
suggestions for increased efficiency here...but thats a whole other story)
From the police station we went to the
bank where I was expecting to spend another 4 hours. But
surprisingly, the bank was the quickest stop! I filled out a form,
they said I would have a new card in 20 days, and in 10 minutes I was
done. From there we stopped by the restaurant where I talked to the
owner to check on the status of finding the pickpocket. Still
nothing...But later that night I was at dinner and I got a call from
the restaurant owner. He had found the robber, the robber had
confessed to taking some money, and he gave it back. He also said
that he had never taken my card, but pulled it out, decided not to
steal it, and put it in a different pocket. Sure enough, I opened an
unused pocket in my wallet, and my ATM card was there! (A little
embarrassing that I had it the whole time...) I was pretty happy at
this turn of events, but the only issue was that I had already
cancelled the ATM card...so I had to go back to the bank the next
day.
Expecting the bank to still have the
report from the day before, I planned to just tear it up. But,
uncharacteristically, the bank had been super fast and had already
sent my report to Tana. So I had to write up another report
explaining what had happened...meanwhile everyone in the bank was
asking questions about everything and offering their own advice for
avoiding pickpockets. By the time I was done in the bank, everyone
had been filled in on my entire story, from what I had to dinner to
how I got my money back. Overall, it turned into a pretty funny
story, and considering the pickpocketing stories from other PCVs, I
got really lucky.
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