Late June 14th early June 15th

The day things went in the shitter. Looking back on it now the whole event feels more like a hazy movie that I am watching at an old run down movie theater; it seems so surreal that I have a hard time believing that the events that occurred on June 14^th actually happened, but unfortunately they did.

Due to the derailment adventure on Tazara, the train did not arrive at the station in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania until around midnight. Myself and another fellow traveller climb into a taxi and ask to be taken to the YMCA guest house, unfortunately the taxi driver and his friends had other plans. Bear with me because this is where time loses all meaning and my memory returns in short flashes of adrenaline. Adrenaline is a funny drug. I can remember noticing everything about that night. I can remember noticing the drivers face and his friends odd mannerisms; I can remember noticing his shoes and the smell in the car; I remember noticing all of the tiniest details, but the odd thing is that I do not actually remember any of it, just that I remember that I noticed them.  

Anyways, enough of the cloak and dagger mystery, many of you already know what happened and I am sure the other can guest. The driver drove us down a dark ally and four other guys jumped in and demanded our money, debit and credit cards, and the pin numbers. There was a lot of shouting, mainly at each other; I don’t think that they had had much practice at this. I do remember one guy was playing the bad guy and his friend was the good guy; I remember thinking “so this actually happens in real life, people get robbed and people actually use the good guy bad guy technique.” It’s not just for the movies folks. I did not cry or scream or panic; I can recall feeling surprisingly calm and somewhere in the back of my head I recalled an episode of Grey’s Anatomy (yes I am a bit embarrassed by this fact), where someone mentions that high jackers/kidnappers are less likely to harm you if they know more about you. So cue the verbal vomit. I started talking about my sisters and my family and how much I loved them, I talked about how I was volunteering as a nurse; I asked them about their families, and where they were from, and what they did for a living. Hind sight that last question was a bit obvious and redundant. I am not quite sure how long we were in the car, best guess about 45 minutes. The robbers gave us 50,000 shilling (about 30 USD) and dropped us off at a hotel.

As I am writing this the whole ordeal sounds completely horrifying and I can hardly believe that it happened to me, but I am virtually unharmed, still happy, still loving Africa, but a few dollars lighter. Granted I am writing this two weeks after this happened so I have had plenty of time to process the event.  I am still a little weary of taxis, my threshold for suspicion in much lower and my heart has a tendency to race at slight provocation, but I have faith that this will begin to lessen with time. On the bright side I can now wear an official world traveller badge, because I have survived a kidnapping and robbing (although I don’t think this provides any consolation to my family or friends, but I promise I am okay)!