Nairobbery

I’ve been prepared for much worse. Malaria. Losing my passport. Having my camera stolen. I’ve managed to avoid all of these episodes. Another Ambassadorial Scholar, now relocated to Kampala, has been less fortunate, having been mugged, evicted, and robbed in both Tanzania and Uganda. But even when I’m being robbed, apparently, I’m lucky.

In hindsight, the entire affair was expertly orchestrated. Two men boarded the bus. One sat behind me and another sat two seats to my left. The latter started a coughing fit and motioned towards the window (where I was sitting) to spit. He switched seats with the boy next to me, feigning a congested chest and holding a rather large shopping bag. Suddenly, the man behind me starts saying, “Hey! Put on your seat belt! The police are checking! Hurry, put on your belt!” During the commotion, the man sitting next to me slipped his hand in my bag and placed my wallet in his shopping bag. I didn’t feel a thing. But the boy who switched seats with him noticed something amiss. (Police could care less about seat belts.) The boy, still dressed in his school uniform, shouted, “Hey! You’re robbing her!” The man adroitly put my wallet back in my bag and vehemently denied the whole thing.

I was stunned at how well the clever operation went down, at least until I was rescued by my knight in shining trousers. According to my eternal optimist boyfriend, “Now you know how they rob without actually getting robbed.” Hooray. Lesson learned.