Getting Gypped

Sunday July 5, 2015

This week was going really well, until Tuesday when I got ROBBED! This is the 7th country I’ve lived in, and that was the first time I’ve ever had anything stolen. Holly wanted to collect some rocks at the river, so we were just making a quick stop on the way home from the grocery store. Right before we parked we saw this guy biff it on his scooter, so Holly popped her head out of the window and asked if he was ok. He said he was, but he gave us the heebeegeebees so we sat in the car and watched until he drove away.  We were just going to be at the river for a few minutes, within sight of our car, so we had just stashed our purses under the seats (so stupid--I never do that...the one time!!!!). There are some steps down to the river, and we were just below them when that same guy came back! He pulled up on his scooter and started saying terrible things that he wanted to do to us, so obviously we didn’t want to go anywhere near him, and he had parked himself right between the top of the stairs and our car. All I could think about was getting away, so we walked over to the next flight of stairs to get back up on the road and in sight of more people. As we were going up, I could hear him break the window of the car. The fact that he was hanging around our car because he wanted to steal from us hadn’t even crossed my mind, or the fact that he was probably a gypsy. He grabbed all our stuff, and took off on his scooter right in front of us, and in broad daylight, as we were running towards him yelling and trying to flag down another car. We ran and screamed and yelled, but there was nothing we could do! It was so beyond frustrating. He took my phone and wallet. Luckily my passport was at home. Jerk. Anyway, we went to the police and reported it, but I don’t think they’ll even do anything about it. It’s like no one really cares... We flagged down one of those mini euro vans, right after and told him we’d just been robbed, and to go after the guy to go after the scooter, but he didn’t seem to care. We stopped at a neighbor’s house who had been watering his garden and asked if he saw which way the gut on a scooter went. He said he may or may not have seen him. It was so weird! Everyone was just so indifferent. But, at least we were safe.

I think one of the most annoying things about it is that I came with such few belongings, and I needed all of them! It’s a bummer to be out a few hundred dollars, but I can get over that. I just want my things! If I were at home I would replace everything he took within a couple days, and it wouldn’t be a big deal. But here I can’t do that. I had spent a lot of time finding that particular purse because it holds a lot and is really light and the strap doesn’t dig into my shoulder. And he took my good phone--my Samsung, but also my little pre-pay France phone, so I have no way to communicate, no alarm clock, no time piece. I went into Nimes yesterday and felt so helpless. My train was an hour late and I had nothing to read (I usually just read books on my Nook app). I wanted to go the museum of fine arts, and I had taken a pic of the map on my laptop with my camera, but it just didn’t suffice. I asked two French people where it was, and they both gave me wrong directions. They love to be helpful, and give directions, but don’t always know where the place is. So I had to walk to the other side of downtown to the tourism office to get a map, and then I didn’t have enough time to go.

Sat July 11, 2015

Epilogue

A purse came in at my 2nd-hand store, that was a pretty good replica of the one I had. They gave it to me for free. And then yesterday on my walk home from the grocery store I found a discarded pre-paid phone in the street, really similar to the French one I had. I don’t know if I can find a battery for it, but it made me feel watched over, nonetheless. :)