Unfortunate Friday evening...

I was pretty excited about the upcoming weekend, however, it didn’t start out very well. Late afternoon on Friday (it was still light!) 4 of us (all women) decided to walk home, which we often do. However, on this particular day we were unlucky. One of my friends had a purse on her side and unfortunately a young guy that was running past must have spotted it, because he turned around and later snuck up behind us. Before we knew what was going on he grabbed the purse, ripped it off of her shoulder and attempted to get away. As my friend grabbed his arm, the purse fell to the ground. We thought he was unsuccessful. Unfortunately, however, we soon realized that all that remained in the purse was Le 10,000 (=$3); the phone had been stolen. My friend and I dashed across the street after him but to no avail. I have to be honest and say I was cautious in going after him because I was afraid he might have a knife. He quickly jumped over the wall at the golf course and we never saw him again. We shouted “thief” but the road was pretty deserted, other than a girl with a basket of goods on her head.

A group of people outside one of the beach bars only 5 minutes down the road heard the commotion and had actually seen the guy earlier on, before he ran past us. Some guys offered to go and look for the thief; “a guy in a purple jersey”. Which they did, but I’m sure he was long gone. And I’d never be able to recognize him if he wasn’t wearing the same purple shirt. We thought of going to the police station to file a report but figured that would probably take 3 hours, maybe a bribe, us providing paper and pen and in the end it wouldn’t bring the phone back. So we didn’t bother.

I felt really bad for my friend. It wasn’t an expensive phone, but had a lot of important contact information. Also, it’s just plain frustrating to have someone steal something from you, especially when you’re in another country, trying to help others. Sorry friend! Anyway, yes, this happened to us here at Lumley beach, in an area that is known for events as such. But to be honest, this happens to people in Freetown all the town. And for that matter probably in a number of big cities all over the world. We were just unlucky.

PS: the rest of the weekend was very nice!