The crime rate in South Africa is quite
high. The most recent stats I've read stated that there is an average of 57 murders
a day! The robbery stats are probably twice as much. So when you take the
occurrences of other crimes into account you realize just how serious the crime
problem is. It would be a miracle for one to go through life and even enter
late adulthood without ever being a victim of a crime either directly or
indirectly but here's a story I don't think you hear often...
My ex and I had been apart for a long time
and we weren't on speaking terms really. Thing is the relationship just kind of
came to an abrupt end, he never really broke up with me he just started seeing
someone else; I think the correct term would be ghosted (you get the
picture).
So 3 days before my sister's birthday I
get a call from him saying he wants to see me, so after work at about 5 pm I
went by his house (well where he was staying) to pick him up and we took a
drive. I couldn't just see him at his place because we weren't on speaking
terms and everyone around knew that and I didn't feel like explaining
myself.... anyways we went for a drive and ended up in West Bank.
I wasn't a very "aware" person
at the time, so little did I know the area was notorious for crime but that
spot by the beach was beautiful nonetheless. So we parked the car by the rocks
and went for a stroll and just talked (I'm sure to this day people think we
were doing a lot more than that). We walked along the beach a few minutes,
talking along the way and realized it was getting really late so we decided we
should probably leave. We had walked say about 10 minutes out then on the way
back to the car we see this guy standing on top of like a sort of hill. My
heart started pounding at this point because I knew right at that moment we
were about to get mugged.
He started making small talk and asking
questions like are you from around here? What brings you to this side of town?
We were about to proceed to the car but then 2 of his friends showed up in
front of us and he then jumped down so we were trapped. The guy closest to me
then pulled up his shirt to reveal the biggest knife I have ever seen, it was
probably a panga (a huge knife) the size of my arm and I froze. My heart
pounded like it was going to explode right out of my chest and I thought
"this is how I am going to die". After that everything happened so
fast. They then body searched us (the guy searching me kept going over my
breasts) and I went numb. In that moment I thought; this cannot be happening
right now. I was stripped of my watch because we weren't carrying anything of
value and they made him take his sneakers off and ran off with those too.
We raced back to the car so fast after
they left only to find that they had found the car before approaching us on the
beach. The passenger side window had been smashed with a rock and that's how
they managed to open the door. The back seat was tilted over which gave them
access to the boot where my handbag was and they had stolen 4 cellphones out of
the glove box. We probably lost a combined total of 20 grand of items (give or
take) in the space of less than 30 minutes. My guess is that they probably
watched us arrive and waited for the right time to strike and boy did they hit
the jackpot that day!
We drove straight to the nearest police
station with shattered glass all over (I kept finding bits of glass in the car
for a while after that) and reported what had just happened. The whole
time I felt like this was my fault and that I shouldn't have been meeting up
with my ex in secret in the first place. I honestly felt like such a fool. I'm
not blaming him because obviously he hadn't planned on us being attacked, it
was out of his control but still... what the hell was I thinking?
I called my mom from the police station
and apparently I was extremely calm for someone who just got robbed at knife
point. I'm a weird person like that. I understood the gravity of what had just
transpired but I felt more angry and annoyed at that moment than anything. Then
I went from feeling like that to just being done. I was just tired mentally and
physically. It had been a long ass day.
Judging by how the muggers looked from the
bit I can remember, they can't have been much older than us. They were probably
in their late twenties. It's absolutely nuts that while some people that age
are starting professional carriers and pursuing their dreams and these guys
have turned to a life of crime. Goes to show just how different societal
standings are in South Africa I think. It's a sad reality if the world we live
in. We can't even go to beautiful isolated places and enjoy them because we'll
get robbed or worse killed (which is what the cops said). Apparently we were 1
of the lucky ones and there were instances where other couples were forced into
the trunks of their cars and the vehicle was then used to commit another crime
and they got killed later.
Here's the worst part of that entire
experience; the next day he came to check up on me and we talked and all that.
Then later on I go onto social media to find he has put a photo of him and his
ex as his profile picture. My heart sank!!! I felt like the biggest fool in the
world! I had almost died and for what??? If that wasn't a sign that I should
stay far away from the guy then what is?
I think
things in life happen for a reason because after all of this, after everything
we went through, I thought a person would at least check on me once in a while.
I thought the whole experience would bring us closer together; no not as a
couple but as people. Then again, maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way and it
was actually a sign that we should stay the hell away from each other. Maybe it
didn't mean anything at all...
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