Robbed
15 July 2005 (Friday) – Recife to Natal, Brazil
Upon reaching Natal, my host, Gisele, was very kind to come to the rodoviaria to pick me up and very soon, I was brought to her house in the centre of Natal for lunch.
As she had interrupted her work to ferry me home, she left me on the beach for a while, while she went to her client’s place to work. She said she would be gone for perhaps half an hour and we agreed to meet in front of the beach where there were some houses with Moroccan designs.
Walking along the beach, I felt very happy as I listened to the waves, felt the wind in my face, sand between my toes and watched the happy people enjoying their afternoon here. Then, a guy asked me for the time. 4:15pm, I showed him my watch.
I suddenly felt something was not right and at that exact moment, 2 guys from further right pounced on me, wrestled me to the ground and ripped my camera off from my pocket and my watch from my wrist!!
I had just been robbed.
I stood up and calmly watched the guys run off. I looked at the people around me. They were all staring at me. No one came to help me during or after the attack. No one came to ask if I was hurt, if I needed the police. Their eyes had the same message – it happens. I do not blame them. They have seen too much violence in their lives.
Strangely, I felt no fear then during the moment when I was robbed. And I felt no fear now either. I continued walking along the beach. The guy who had asked me for the time joined me, saying something about the boys having weapons on them and he was scared. I did not respond at once, I just walked on. Then, I asked him where I could find the police.
We climbed onto the street promenade and at one point, the guy indicated that we walk down one street to the police station. Gisele would be meeting me soon in front of the Moroccan-looking buildings. So I told him I had to meet a friend first.
He walked with me for a while, then he said he had something to do and he left. Fine.
I soon came upon two policemen on bicycles and told them what happened. They accompanied me while I waited for Gisele, and she soon came. She felt shocked and she felt terrible that this should happen to me during my first hour here in Natal. She told me Recife is a much, more dangerous city than Natal. In some recent polls, she told me Natal was the third safest city in Brazil in terms of murders. Whatever.
Well, indeed I was not murdered, I was not hurt, I was alright and I was not feeling horrid or sad or frightened either. I do not know why but I had a sense of calm in me. Anyway, I had travel insurance, so I would just make a police report and get it over with. I just felt bad I had to put her through so much trouble.
At the police station, a Brazilian couple had also just been robbed at gun-point. Imagine! Going to the police station to report a robbery and meeting other victims of another robbery at the same time! Gosh, the crime rates here must be horrendous!
We tried to compare our assailants but decided they were different. Well, at least, mine did not put a gun to my face, like theirs did. The police gave me a stack of photos to identify. I did as best as I could. I do not know how those people on TV crime shows, can ever put together an identi-kit after 1 glance. But it all happened so fast, and I was busy fighting for my life, not looking out for any tattoos, necklaces or colours of their eyes!
Soon, it slowly dawned on me that the guy who asked me for the time could possibly be involved. He was the one nearest to me. And right after he asked for the time, I instinctively felt something was fishy. If I was not wrong, I thought he made a nodding gesture to the two guys who then pounced on me. I wrestled with them long enough, thinking that the guy nearest to me might help me. He didn’t, of course. He had fled far away. Yet, he had later rejoined me and claimed that the boys had guns on them, which… frankly, I did not see at all. When he suggested that I walked with him down a lonely street, my instincts somehow had been not to follow him, but to walk along the busy promenade to meet Gisele, which I told him so. If a guy truly wanted to help me report this incident to the police, would he have continued walking with me, or would he have left right after that remark? And coincidentally, 2 steps later, I stumbled upon the police… Hmmm… lots of questions now.
Anyway, as I am a foreigner, there was a special place to make a police report, not really to get anything back but to receive a nice little printed report for our travel insurance. These guys here at the station just wanted to know how the assailants look like and what was taken. Then, they thanked me and said they would start working on this on Monday. Monday??? That’s 2 days away. Oh well. Fine. Whatever…
I was surprised at the calm I was feeling. Why? Why don’t I feel upset or scared or horrible? I guess I had expected this to happen since I crossed into Brazil. Many people had warned me about being robbed. But I could not just hide in a hole and not come out.
I know, for sure, I felt a huge sense of disappointment. I really love photography. It is one of my greatest passions – the sense of calm and beauty as I absorb the atmosphere first, and then try to see things from interesting angles and capture these images (sometimes, surprisingly poetic even) to remember them by, or to take spontaneous pictures of the people living their lives… it is a form to express myself and to share with my friends and families back home all these amazing experiences that I have. I was also very inspired by Pierre Verger with his quest to capture LIFE around the world for eternity, to share with people everywhere.
I brought along a small camera so that I would not be robbed of my SLR. Then, someone came along and robbed me of my small camera. I really love South America, and I want to remember the great places, the interesting buildings and lives on the streets, the amazingly kind people who had shared their lives with me, but I can’t do it, not this way. I tried but this is my third time here and my third robbery.
Well, I know I am stronger than I think. I am still alive, I am not down and out yet. I will continue on with my other passion – travelling, but without a camera now. Maybe it will be better this way. Who knows? I never tried it before. I will capture the images with my eyes and my heart, and try and paint pictures of my experiences with my words and my mind. That, they cannot rob from me.
I made the police report and got on with life.
Gisele took me to a hip-hop club that night. Not my kind of music and not my kind of crowd but well, I adapted myself really easily. The club was crawling with absolutely gorgeous, svelte people who are at least a decade younger than Gisele and I. But, who cares? We are here to party and we did, until 4:30am the next day, stinking of smoke and with beer in my hair.
Tags: 03) The Land of the Spirits, Natal
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