Live and Learn

When I first realized that my laptop had been stolen, I felt like I had woken up in an iced bathtub to find that my left kidney had been surreptitiously removed. I was horrified and in shock. My encounter was as novel as a newborn, even though I have been robbed twice before, both times also in interestingly frustrating situations. My first encounter with the thieving class (or at least their aftermath) occurred on a train ride from Prague to Bucharest while I was studying in the Czech Republic. I fell asleep seated upright with my bag between my legs, and I woke up with my bag still between my legs, but with my iPod, Nikon digital SLR, three Nikon lenses, and my sunglasses gone – estimated loss, $3,200. Fortunately, all the good’s were covered under my Dad’s homeowners’ insurance, and I was able to file a sizable claim, which I used to buy a new set of black and white Nikon photo equipment. In turn, while I was rock climbing in Little Cottonwood Canyon on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, that Mormon bastion of blondeness, skinny ties, and purported ex-urban fuelled safety, my car had its back window smashed, and all of my camera gear stolen, again. My two buddies and I drove around Arizona, Wyoming, and Utah for the next two weeks with a poncho duct taped to the window, until my Dad came to the rescue – not for the first time, and certainly not for the last – when he insisted that we get the mess fixed, on his tab, before making the three thousand mile return across country.
Most people that I know have had a run-in with some sort of major robbery. The general sentiment seems to be unequivocal – it sucks. Being robbed in a place like Hungary or Indonesia, where you know from the outset that your chances of recovering the goods are negligible, only adds insult to injury. I have been riding economy busses, time permitting, since I arrived in Indonesia three months ago. With the preconceived desire to “mingle with real people,” I thought that riding the four-hour, dollar-twenty bus to my microfinance project in Solo was a good idea. I, however, forsook the first, boldfacd rule in the book – NEVER FALL ASLEEP WHEN RIDING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION – and wound-up going through an eerily and frustratingly similar situation to that which I had in Eastern Europe. I woke-up to find my bag opened and my beautiful, pristine, and quite frankly sexy Macintosh Power Book gone.
After going through the trauma and self-debasement of the remainder of the bus ride, I still had to go through the truly epic rigmarole of filing insurance papers with the local police – a country specific rite of passage that I learned in the pirogi scented and cigarette filled halls of a minor police station in downtown Budapest. I met my friend and co-worker Akbar at the station in Solo, where after recounting my bad news, he whisked me off to the police en route to our project site. Before arriving at the station, he contacted his local shaman, who stayed in touch with us for the next few hours. The shaman’s initial reading on the matter was “If you feel very bad about this, the computer is probably gone.” Thanks, Doc.
The apathy with which civil employees do their jobs seems to remain universally constant across the first, (formerly) second, and third worlds. (Please pardon the throwback to the days of non-alignment, although judging from recent reports from Cuba, some loony dictators and assorted other ragamuffins seem to imagine the system alive and well. On a tangential note, the term “non-aligned” – and the stratification of developed democracies, communist entities claimed by the USSR, and the others belonging to the inauspicious “third world” – was branded here in Indonesia in the city of Bandung in 1956 where the inaugural Asia-Africa Conference was held. Right.)
At the regional police station in Solo, I spent the four remaining hours of Friday afternoon filing insurance claims and observing with horror and fascination as the gears of sub-provincial bureaucracy creaked into motion. As one officer copied my information from various official documents to his computer, the rest of the force peered over his shoulder, only contributing help in any way when the ashtray began to overflow. The incomprehensibly epic task of copying my name, address, and birth date was extended even further after we were informed that the printers downstairs were not working, and that my information would have to be transcribed to paper, whereupon it would be reentered upstairs, where the printers were purportedly working.
Frustrated to the point of anger by the whole ordeal, I left the smoky office and joined my acquaintances from KOMPIP (the Javanese NGO with which I work) outside in the main foyer. The building was surprisingly modern, well-maintained and clean. A replica model of the complex was showcased in the middle of the hall, and I spent a good half hour wondering why blonde plastic miniatures would ever be playing tennis at the police department’s neighboring sporting complex – oh, the trials and tribulations that plague great minds. As developing techno echoed down the marble hallways, a pair of uniformed officers came striding by. As one of them sized me up, I noticed that his black patent leather boot was trailing a streamer of toilet paper. He followed my gaze, and embarrassedly clutched at his foot as he lengthened his stride.
Upstairs, once my data had been successfully re-re-rendered, I was sat down in front of a barefoot, heavyset man in a loose fitting casual shirt. As he prompted me for questions regarding the time, place, and location of the robbery (in Bahasa Indonesia), I couldn’t help but stare at the massive sweat stains forming under his armpits and manbreasts. He was a true prototype of humanity.
As the sun dropped behind the surrounding hills and rice paddies, the five of us left the police station and made our way to the microfinance site. The shaman was still in contact with Akbar, and was now claiming that I had actually left my computer in Surabaya – East Java’s largest city – despite the fact that I hadn’t been there in over three weeks. Akbar offered more practical advice, and told me that there was a ten percent chance that he could track down the laptop. If you’re going to have a piece of expensive electronics stolen from you in Central Java, there are few people you’d rather be with than the members of KOMPIP, a smattering of people well connected in the criminal world due to their work with the disenchanted and poor of the region. I gave Akbar a weak smile, but didn’t put much hope in his offer. Even after my Dad convinced me to offer a US$200 reward on the black market, I knew that there was little hope for getting back the machine. I lost all of my grad school applications, all of my photos from Indonesia, and much of my recent writings and ruminations.
Live and learn – and back-up your F-ing hard drive – so they say.