The Twenty-Second Robbery

Today’s evening was electric!

About seven-pm, my mobile phone was robbed - but only for 20 seconds.

Occupying a window-seat in a commuter taxi that was slowly snaking its way through the thick of Kampala’s downtown vehicle and foot-traffic, which becomes an almost impenetrable hive of pedestrians, cyclists and motorists as the evening rush-hour ripens, I was as comfortable as could be – chatting absently with my old-woman (read: mother) about the day’s on-goings and other trivialities I can’t quite recall.

Unsuspectingly typing away on my (quite costly) mobile handset and oblivious to any possible danger, I was rudely jolted back into the harsh realm of reality when a rough-hand shot through the slightly ajar window, closed around the phone, and shot back out.

’’Kankulagge Kampala ...’’ sneered a voice, before its scoundrel of an owner sped off, taking my phone with him.

For half a heartbeat, I was petrified.

My mind went blank; I gaped at my mother beside me, who gaped back wordlessly. 

My mouth opened and closed without a sound before I turned sharply around to look at the culprit’s vanishing blue-grey sweater as he got swallowed up by a crowd, with my ‘baby’ in his possession!

What happened thereafter was just reflexive, I think, for I had already despaired and began to curse loudly – ’Sh*t! … Oh, sh*t!’

You know, utterances like that, which ought never be said around mothers. 

I remember the thought of how I’d had to save through the nose to buy said phone waving like a red-flag before mind’s eye.

What struck home most painfully though, were the parting words of the rogue – ’’Kankulagge Kampala ...’’ (let me school you in the ways of the city) – which essentially amounted to labeling me witless, and quite indeed the fool.

My helplessness, brought on by an instinctive catatonia in such moments, erupted so suddenly that I scarce had a moment to think before I pushed the taxi window violently forward and dived through, onto the waiting tarmac.

I hit the ground with my palms, rolled into a ball, sprung onto my feet and vaulted forward after the thieving wretch.

It was only sheer luck on my part that the traffic was moving slowly, and no motorcycles were trying to edge through the gap of road where I fell.

My mother must’ve been screaming something at me, and I remember someone tugging at my trouser-bottoms as I went through the window – but my eyes were only fixed forward as I plunged into the mild dusk.

I hissed like a wounded viper as I shouted at taxi drivers and boda-boda riders alike, ‘Ayise wa!’ – which is the Ganda phrase for ‘Where has he gone?’

And I must confess I’ve always thought Kampala City’s denizens, especially the ubiquitous public transport operatives – as both callous and sadistic; but my presumptions were all put to shame as the fellows enthusiastically jumped to my succor.

‘Awo!’ – ‘Sala wano!’ – ‘Wuyo mukwate!’

'Right there … turn that corner … No, turn left …’ I followed the instructions like a man in a daze, responding almost robotically.

And indeed, when I eventually narrowed in on the culprit, I didn’t even recognize him – for he had slowed to a walking pace and was trying to blend in with the rest of the crowd.

 It was a stray boda-boda rider who pointed him out;

‘There he is, right before you …’

That’s all I needed. I reached my arm around the chap’s throat, swept him off his feet and grabbed the phone. 

I lifted the poor fellow about four feet in the air before bringing him down like a sack of dry-cassava onto the tarmac.

‘Ayiiii …. Ndekkaa …’ his protestations were agonizing, as a small crowd of on-lookers began to gather; but the fellow quickly got to his feet and, wrenching free of my clasp, bolted. 

Despite passionate shouts of 'Aliwa tumwoche!' - 'He should be set afire!' - which is the standard mob-penalty for petty thieves in many African cities, I let the urchin get away because no matter how expensive the phone - it could never be worth his life.

It all happened so fast.

I was both glad and quite shocked that I’d got the phone back – ‘who gets a snatched phone back in this viscous human ocean!’ – I kept thinking.

I only smiled sheepishly, and trotted back to my taxi, triumphantly displaying my prize to the waiting drivers and motorcyclists that had offered directions on my brief chase.

‘You got it?’ – ‘Mister, have you got it?’

‘Yes – I got it’ – ‘See – here it is!’

‘Banaaye omusajja ajifunye!’- ‘The man’s got the phone!' - they couldn’t believe it either.

I found the taxi with my mother in a short while. 

Everybody was talking aloud and looking around excitedly.

'Ojifunye!?' - 'Have you got it?’ was the unanimous question.

I smiled arrogantly, and slipped phone from pocket to show them, looking around warily in case another hoodlum thought to take his chance with it.

‘Eh – you boy! I didn’t know you were that dangerous … are we safe around you?’ was all the old woman could say, shocked.

As for me – I couldn’t help cursing African governments for their poor policies and ill-governance that foster unemployment, urban-crime and desperation among young people.

Indeed, for half a heart-beat during the scuffle, I'd got it into my head to apprehend the pilferer and drag him to a police-post.

 Hardly had the thought flashed across my mind than it hit me, that rather than have the issue addressed by those khaki-clad constables, I was more likely to be 'undressed' by those law-enforcement louts - whose latest specialty seems to be the denuding of hapless citizens!

Perhaps on a final note, I'd say the experience reminded me, in its own dramatic and tumultuous way, just how fleeting and temporal our worldly possessions are; and unless one derives nourishment from heart-ache, they should, of value, in such ephemeral things place progressively little and less ...

Alas - what started in a robbery, climaxed in a recovery!