The Sequel of yesterday’s story.
After an emotional departure of a loved one I decided I needed to wrap myself in that warm cloak of friendship, which I intended to find in La Plata. However, life had other plans with me.
While writing I realized my securely locked safe bag disappeared somehow…
After 45 minutes this zen state of mind was replaced by something more maniacal. I had turned the entire apartment upside down, checked all logical and illogical places at least 5 times and my friend initiated an even more thorough search. Not only were my 2 iPods in that safe bag, also all my chargers, my cash money, my vaccine proofs, my dive license, my drivers license, my 4 back-up USB’s with all my documents and last but not least: my PASSPORT and ALL MY CREDIT AND DEBIT CARDS were in that damn bag. Indeed, the bloody traveler’s nightmare, there you go. Yeah, I know I should have separated it blablabla, great advice after it happened.
My friend kept on repeating it couldn’t be gone, he lived here for 3 years and nothing ever happened here, even with the backdoor open. “Wait what, rewind… say that again, you left the backdoor open?” His big brown eyes stared into mine with a shocked expression. Yes, but nothing ever happened, this is a quiet place. And if they would have broken in, it wouldn’t be this organized… closets and drawers would have been open, chaos would rule the apartment, now everything was at its exact place. Also, more stuff would have been missing, like my laptop, his computer, jewelry… Well, guess what. More stuff was missing, we just didn’t know it yet. After another hour of desperate searching we figured out also his $1500 camera was gone, plus some unused cell phones scattered around in his bedroom (plus his roommates’ laptop and amplifier, as it turned out later). Well, fuck me.
What happens then in the human brain is rather ugly. All scenarios pass by. What could have happened, when, how and especially who? Could it be, but only maybe, you know I don’t know them that well, but ehm… him? Noooooo, but maybe yes, maybe this missing camera is just a distraction-trick, no it can’t be, yes it can, but I trust him, well what is trust in your situation?! I saw him sitting on the floor in (an act of?) despair, behind his eyes flashing the same ethical rollercoaster. Of course, he was suspecting me too, even though he doesn’t want to.
I know whatever friendship we had was gone now, the foundations were too weak, everything was covered into a haze of awkwardness.
We talked a lot, processing the reality by a words overflow. Admitted, one scenario seemed the most obvious: The unknown man that had rang the doorbell the day before to ‘fix some cables’ probably had used the opportunity to check out the interior of the house, combined with some spying from the outside… to return when we went out for a group dinner with friends, optimizing the power outage covering the entire neighborhood in darkness. But to be honest: It didn’t matter. I lost everything that is essential for traveling and I had to fix that now. No matter who stole it, it wasn’t in my possession anymore, and I had to deal with the situation as it is right now.
With a renewed calmness we headed to the police office. I wasn’t expecting anything from Argentina’s corrupted law enforcement, but as a Dutch citizen I’m obliged by law to declare a stolen passport. The officers looked up annoyingly, telling us whatever the hell happened to us wasn’t their responsibility. We weren’t in their official area anyway, we should try at the other office a 55-minute walk away. Okay, just force a smile and a friendly head nod and do what these assholes say. After we traversed La Plata’s ‘bad area’ after sunset (all my cash was stolen so I couldn’t take a cab) we arrived at the other office. Well, guess what, it wasn’t their responsibility either! We should get straight back where we came from. Stephanie, count to 10, they have to live with their own lousy existence, don’t get mad okay. Right. I pushed out another smile, thanked them for their helpful advice, and walked an hour back to where we came from.
The cops now realized they actually had to work and they weren’t happy with that realization. My facial expression wasn’t giving them another option however. So one of them sat down and I explained what happened. Thank god I speak Spanish, because don’t expect these well-paid government officials to be educated in any other language than their own.
He interrupted me halfway, I wanted to declare a robbery? Na-ah, not going to happen.
Ehm, why not? Because I would have to stay in La Plata for the next few months and would be reported to Interpol as an official victim and will have to stay in Argentina to defend myself, if not the police in my country would go look for me and I would be arrested at the border. Yes, read that again. Are you fucking kidding me? I’m robbed, I’m the victim here, not the offender. You smell that? It’s the smell of bullshit.
I explained I didn’t need anything from them, they could continue leaning back in their chair eating donuts, they don’t have to go after anyone. I just wanted on paper a confirmation of what happened, that’s all. Well, the only thing they could possibly do for me is write it down as if I FORGOT my bag in a shop, without remembering where, so it would basically all be MY fault. Wow. Just wow. No matter how much I love this country, it leaves me speechless in a lot of different ways.
With my false police reports in my hand I left the office, the cop shouting behind me that I should repeat the lie they wrote down there to all official institutions, just in case. I will fucking not, thank you very much. This whole police-inefficiency cost me about 4 hours of my life, so it was too late to return to Buenos Aires where my embassy is located. So I waited in a bed in La Plata with my eyes open until the night was gone and my fatherland would open its offices.
As I had blocked all my bankpasses yesterday I called my 2 different banks to request new ones (luckily I had my phone with me and still had some Skype-credit to make international calls), to be delivered at my mother’s address. Including internet-banking machines, as they stole those too. I refused their offer to send it to Argentina, as once this bank had ‘accidentally’ blocked my credit cards when I was in Colombia and they couldn’t make their own mistake undone, after which it took 5 months for the new ones to arrive due to a failing Latin American post system (I of course already left Colombia by then, which meant I had to wait another 10 months without a credit card until a family member on holidays could bring a new one to me). Instead, I posted a cry for help on the ‘Dutch-people-in-Buenos-Aires’ Facebook-page and subsequently tracked down a helpful Dutch KLM-stewardess who was willing to transport my new bankpasses from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to her homebase Buenos Aires.
€35 for the replacement of my bankpasses, fair enough. At least no money was taken from my account, as they probably had to burn open the entire safe bag first to access it.
Ok, the bank process is set in motion, now continue with another priority: my passport.
With all my stuff on my back I walked 50 minutes to La Plata’s bus terminal to take a bus with the last pesos that were still on my public transport pass, thank the devil for that. Bewildered I entered the embassy building, where, believe it or not, they were expecting me. How? Well, the embassy exists of quite loyal Facebook-members who all read my message, so they figured some kind of Stephanie would pass by any moment now. I could get an interim-passport the same day to go back to my country. But I don’t want to go back to my country! Ok, in that case I should apply for a new passport, which would be €130 for a 3-week process of €180 for a 5-day-emergency-request. Well, that last one I guess.
Fine, pay first please. Pay?! How? They stole all my cash and debit- and credit cards, I have no access to my money. Western Union? Nope, as you need a passport to pick that up, and guess what I’m here for… The only thing I could think of was that my mother would bank-transfer the money now. Hm, they needed to ask permission for that to the Ministery of Foreign Affairs, who appeared to be specifically unresponsive that day. But in the meantime I could walk those 8 blocks to have some recent government-approved passport photos taken. I scraped the last coins I could find from the bottom of my backpack and convinced the photo-shop to accept that as payment. As I didn’t sleep all night and didn’t waste time on using make-up or a hairbrush you can imagine what a charming photo will be staring at me from my passport the next 10 years to come.
In total I would spend about 6 hours in that embassy, them staying open another additional 4 hours after closing time just to help me out. I was thirsty, so they provided me with water and coffee. I was hungry, so they bought me lunch. This is the boost of awesomeness you need in a situation like this. After the request was approved and the process rolling, they made some phone calls to kick the asses of the local police force and rectify my report, which was indeed now officially confirmed as gibberish.
In the meantime I called and mailed all over my country to start the process for a driver’s license replacement, which costs €30… a new divers carnet, which is another €30… and a new vaccine passport. The last one wasn’t as easy said as done, as also in my country I had the habit of moving around uncontrollably, changing scenery at an accelerated rate. Ergo: I got vaccinated in about 4 different municipalities. Who, very efficiently, operate as separate entities without internal communication. As such I had to request a big amount of different vaccination passports, all €17,50 each. The other option, to get all my vaccines again (which is FREE in Argentina), didn’t seem so attractive either. I don’t think an overdose of antibodies is healthy for anyone. Well, screw me, I need these proofs to cross borders. I decided to just pay for this rubbish and once I got my passport get another free yellow fever shot, as it was almost expired anyway and it’s the most important one of all in Latin America.
I spent another €60 on new USB-sticks, as that how expensive electronics are in Argentina, and ordered a €80-second-hand iPod in the Netherlands, as traveling without any music is rather boring. Yes, to rob a bit of cash (about €80 worth) from me, I had to make all these efforts and expenses to replace what is essential to me and absolutely worthless to the robber. Because what the hell are they going to do with someone else’s passport, a Dutch driver’s license, blocked bank passes and some random chargers? Nothing.
But I wasn’t mad. I felt sorry for the person who had to survive like this. I wasn’t worried either.
Sometimes life laughs at you, sometimes clouds filled with acid pour down all over you. It’s to test how strong you are.
On top of that, I was in a country I knew very well, where I speak the language, and filled with amazing people going out of their way to help me (literally, my email server almost went out of order for a bit due to a message overload), every bad apple being compensated for hundreds of buckets of good ones. Look at the bright side: I would finally have some time to sort out those millions of photos, update my website, study some Portuguese. I had an endless supply of houses where I could have stayed, and I lost count of the people who offered me money to borrow until I got my stuff sorted out.
But I knew it was life’s way of sending me a playful message, an ironic gift. Apparently the universe didn’t agree with my abrupt goodbye. There was one heart-broken person in whose life I was always welcome. His smile faded away all that had happened. Time. A bit more, a new goodbye on a longer road of acceptance.
… all of that to be robbed again the very next week in Brazil (BUT: all was separated this time, I apparently do learn, and my passport was thrown back to me by the robber: thumbs up).
¯\_(ツ)_/¯