Crime and stuff

So today I joined the millions of other South Africans who have their names listed in some book in some police station as a victim of crime. Sad, very very sad.

My brother and I decided to take the kids up the coast to look at the Jolly Rubino (look it up) that had beached itself some time ago a few hundred meters from the beach, and had been abandoned there after being stripped of anything of value by the salvage company.

It's common knowledge that there are a lot of criminals living in the bush, and some people, fishermen / tourists have been hijacked / robbed along these isolated locations.

We drove straight there, not a bad access road, although you would need a four wheel drive to get there. We parked in a nice open space, just above the beach line, and stayed within 30 meters of the vehicle at all times, occasionally glancing up to check that there was no one near it.

There was no one around. No footprints to show that anyone had been there before us for
some time, at least since the last rains earlier in the week. Suddenly my brother started shouting, and as I looked up I saw 3 young black kids running from the bakkie, away from us, into the bush. The area is very densely overgrown, with massive dunes covered by many trees and other vegetation.

I took off, did a 3 second assessment of the damage and found that they had used a spark plug to smash the passenger side left front window, and reaching into the bakkie opened the cubby hole, took out my wallet. They opened the center console storage box and took my cell phone and my brothers wallet.

They grabbed his camera bag with second lens (camera was slung around his neck at the time luckily) and a leatherman in its leather pouch. That's about the time he spotted them and shouted. If he hadn't they would have stripped the car!

I ran into the bush, following the first set of tracks. They petered out about 75 meters in, as the carpet of pine needles and leaves left no track. I came back and picked up on the second set. These ran a bit further, but then swung right, and seemed to melt into the bush more or less where the first set did. Looking ahead I couldn't believe that anyone would be able to get through there, with bare feet! But they did. About 10 minutes had passed. I walked
back a way, and followed the third set, but after about 100 meters these prints also faded.

Listening closely I couldn't hear anything, so either they had run damn hard to get well away, or they were lying close, in the thick stuff, holding their breath.

I didn't think I could catch them, but hoped that they would discard the emptied wallets leaving behind credit cards, ID Documents, and drivers licences and stuff. Nothing.

I walked back to the rest of the family, and found my son very close to tears. I had been gone quite a while, not making a sound, and he was worried that maybe they had overwhelmed me and done me in.We cleaned out the glass and stuff and got in, to drive back home very espondent and pissed off.

About 200 meters down the dirt road I spotted my wallet placed neatly in the middle of the track! I shouted to my brother to stop and jumped out and grabbed it. Then I heard someone running away up the hill into the bush. I thought of following, but it would have been no use.

Checking the wallet I saw that all my cards, and my brothers cards and stuff was in it.They had taken about ZAR 700 in notes and a few Rand in coins from my wallet. They had kept his wallet with about ZAR1000 in it, but had taken everything else out of it, and put it into my wallet, and left it where they knew we would find it!!

My brother was so relieved he took to shouting "Thank you, you bastards" about 3 times into the hills! In fact his reaction was right. We lost the money and stuff, but in South Africa trying to replace ID Documents, drivers licences, credit cards and stuff is a nightmare of note. You don't want to go there.....!

Back home we dropped off the kids, drove to town to put a block on my Sim card, bought a new one, drove to the police station to report the incidence.That was not a pleasant experience either. Some cocky, black bad breathed arsehole detective (did I mention he was black) tried to get all smart arsed with my brother, who at 6' 3" and 125kg is not know to take any crap. He
was quickly told what a useless inefficient prick he was, (did I mention he was black) and when he refused to give his name, my brother took his photo with his cellphone camera!

Then he left, and we sat down with a constable who took the details and a statement. The dumb fuck didn't even know if the area where the incident took place fell under his stations juristiction or not, and after some asking around confirmed that it probably didn't and he would have to forward the documents to the other station, which was fine with us. All we were wanting was to
report the incident, so as to get a case number, which then allowed us to submit a claim with the insurance companies! There is no way they will bother to find the culprits anyway.

He said something about getting the prints on file and then if they catch them in future they can link him back to this case, but they haven't even bothered to come and take finger prints! So much for procedure and protocol!

Anyway, we told the wives, but not Mom, who will just stress about it anyway. I have my own view on this.I take it as an involuntary contribution to the welfare of a current / future HIV/AIDS victim. May he rot in hell!

Salagatle!