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Well we never made it whitewater rafting. Instead I withdrew all the money to go and got robbed! Rather unfortunate.
We had just been (shamefully) to see Fame for the second time (we were with other friends who had not seen it yet if that makes it less sad) and got boda bodas back to our hostel. I was about two minutes away from the hostel when a guy on a boda (motorbike) drove right up onto the pavement, grabbed my bag and incidentally took half my top with him too and then he kept driving. He didn't even slow down. Unfortunately my passport was in my bag along with many other items I would rather have kept and even though it wasn't particularly threatening as far as muggings go it still left me pretty shaken.
If that had been the end of the ordeal it wouldn't have been so bad. Unfortunately getting the police to write a report for my insurance company was far worse than actually getting robbed. We were prepared for how long it would take as we had spent so long there the week before after Francesca's phone got stolen (it became a running joke- shall we go to the police station today? We've been every day this week... why not...). It was far worse though.
The really nice man Patrick who ran our hostel decided to walk us up there as it was dark. Instead of the police writing me a report they decided they would detain him for being Congolese and not having his papers on him. I was on the phone cancelling cards and sorting things out while Francesca was arguing with the police about why they were arresting him. It was awful. He was just sat looking completely defeated. Luckily Francesca managed to talk them around as they were seemingly after money and they let him come back to the hostel with us.
In the meantime they were trying to get me to pay for my police report; rather exasperating as I had just explained to them that the thief took everything I owned including all my cards so how could I pay? Their answer: since I am going to be a lawyer I should ring my clients and they should pay. Very logical.
Four hours later we made it back to the hostel but we still had to return the next day for a further six before we could get the letter I needed. It wasn't so bad then, except for sitting in the homicide office (another running joke as we always seemed to end up in there for no reason). We were sat with a man for a while and then a policeman came in and explained to another that we were there because we had been robbed and he was there because he was suspected of murder. The suspected murderer did assure us he hadn't killed anyone (very reassuring) but we made a swift exit all the same!
After that we spent a few days going back and forth to the High Commission sorting out my passport and picking up a few things that the thief had dumped as he didn't want them (got my driving licence back- wahoooo). The people we dealt with there should get medals. I have many thank you emails to write on my return home. They replaced my passport in a matter of three hours. It was such a relief when we pulled up outside. We were just trying to explain to a guard what had happened and ask where we should go when an English guy pulled up in a car, saw us and just said 'these girls need to be taken inside...' I could have hugged him. He was in a car or I probably would have done.
Since then we sat on a bus for a long time and travelled through to Arusha in Tanzania where we met with Laurie (Francesca's sister) and Mark who have been travelling up from Cape Town. We spent a couple of days sorting things out and having a rest and then headed up Mount Kilimanjaro for a six day trek on the Machame route. It was an amazing experience and a blog with follow with details but for now my internet time is up...
I hope everyone at home is well. Lots of love to everyone x
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