Speed Bump, Not a Road Block

With everything going as well as it has been on my African adventure so far, I figured sooner or later I'd cross paths with some bad luck. Unfortunately the bad luck I was anticipating turned out to be really bad luck and now I am left without my laptop and the back pack I have had strapped to my shoulders since my junior year of high school. The story goes as follows:

On Sunday, I had just got back from an Internet cafe and brushing up on the latest worldly current events. Since I no longer work at the SAHRC, my free Internet connection no longer exists and I have to resort to the occasional internet cafe, not bad but not ideal either. When I got home I put my bag with my lap top in it on the floor and then met up with some friends to go to a braai (the South African word for BBQ). This was around four and in less than five hours I'd be back in my room only this time the value of its contents would be significantly less.

I had left my window slightly cracked like I had done 90% of the other days I had been living in Cape Town, thinking nothing of the consequences especially since burglary bars still gave me the comfort of safety. Needless to say, I was in a state of utter shock when I returned to my room and found my covers thrown around the room and my backpack missing. I ran to the window to find the burglar bars still intact but the window wide open. I couldn't figure out how the theft had occur ed until I noticed a large stick laying just underneath my window. I went outside to find a robber's weapon of choice, a large stick jerry-rigged with a wire hook used to lift my back pack and its contents through the window and somehow through the burglar bars.

Getting your possessions stolen sucks, plain and simple. Especially when your possessions include something sentimental (my back pack) and something expensive (my computer). It has taken me a few days to come to grips with my loss and the realization that the case I opened with the South African police fruit has less of a chance of bearing fruit than Christopher Reeves to star in the next Superman film (filing the report was actually hilarious, Barney Fife even would have laughed at the "investigation"). The worst part about this whole incident is that everything else had been going extremely well, including finding a paying job starting in July. I hate to have to cut this post short but I thought it was necessary to explain why I haven't written in a while and why my posts will be more sporadic until I get a new computer of some sort. I hope this message finds everyone well and I promise on the next post to only include stories that are interesting and upbeat.