15 april 2014

six years later and still alive

This weekend it's eastern weekend.
This weekend six years ago I got robbed in Athlone, with a gun. You might think that is the scariest thing that happened to me in this country. But no.
Let me tell you about the craziest thing that ever happened to me here:

It was a saturday in february 2008. I was with Irina, another Swedish girl. We were both volunteering at a home of safety for boys between 8-18 years old. This saturday we were gonna take some of the boys to a football game at Athlone Stadium. Ajax Cape Town was playing Kaizer Chiefs. Top game of the year! It was sold out. We had our tickets though. We were standing outside the stadium and I started to hand out the tickets to the boys. One man cam up to me and asked if we had extra tickets. We had, because some of the boys couldn't come, so I said "Yes we have 2 extra tickets". I shouldn't have said those words.
Suddenly there was about 5 men asking me, insisting on getting those tickets. Just seconds later there was at least 50 people around me, shouting at me, asking me for the tickets. I started to feel threatened. Irina took the boys and stepped back a bit. I started to walk away slowly. Everyone followed me, still shouting "give us the tickets, we want tickets, we know you have tickets".
I started to walk faster. I was almost running. So, I ended up at a fence. Trapped. I sat down. All the men (at least 50-70 according do Irina that saw everything) was in my face, shouting. They were actually not touching me, just shouting. I just remember I was thinking "NO, these kids have never ever been to a football game in their lives, I am not gonna give the tickets away to these stupid men". I remember myself starting crawling out of the group of people, between their legs, I got out and ran over the street, scared as hell, didn't even look for cars, I just ran.
I ran into a restaurant, I think it was a Nandos or something. I threw the tickets to the staff and just said "hide these for me please". The second after all the men were in the restaurant, in my face again. Shouting. Going f*cking crazy! At this moment I was so angry, upset, scared and frustrated. I took my bag, took out my camera, phone, wallet and told people "here, take whatever you feel like taking, but I do NOT have tickets anymore, they are gone and the children wont see their first football game, thanks to you idiots". Eben, one of the smallest guys (about 8 years old) came to me, between all these angry men, hugged me and asked if I was ok.
NOW, finally, the police came. The crazy men left and it was all ok. Kind of. We went outside, I explained to the police what happened and the police man asked me "so where are the tickets?" ... They were still in the restaurant. The police man went to get them. Of course there were like 5 missing. The staff in the restaurant probably thought they should have something for helping me out... Who knows. Anyway. The whole thing ended with the police driving us inside the stadium in his police car. The kids loved it. The women working at the boys home, not so impressed by the swedish volunteers....

WHAT A CULTURE CHOCK, haha!

The story about me getting robbed with a gun, the guys taking my phone, manage to film themselves with the phone and send the video to my friend and then I had to go with the Police to Cape Flats late at night to his sister because she was the only one with internet, to see the video my friend send me of the robbers..  that's another story. Maybe for another time.

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