Mean Streets
Trip Start
Apr 26, 2005
1
22
42
Trip End
Nov 17, 2005
Lusaka,
Zambia
Monday, August 1, 2005
Traffic on the bridge has come to a halt as passengers on a minibus and private security guards from the truck behind spill out onto the railing, yelling abuses at the thieves and trying to get down to help.
The massive women is dressed in her Sunday clothes, and bends double trying to hold on as another guy joins the first in a tug of war for the bag. The robbers win and make a dash under the bridge, pursued by onlookers who lose the thieves as they disappear down a sewer pipe
Killer Fence
. I'm on my way to the 79th annual Lusaka Agriculture and Commercial Show, looking for photo ops and the chance at a story. But this is not the story I had expected. Purse-snatching, pickpocketing, car-jacking and armed robberies are not rare here; in fact, crime is the rule rather than the exception. It doesn't matter that Zambia is a peaceful country. Peace doesn't put food on the table, and poverty and desperation are endemic.
While violent crime is not as common as simple theft it's not unusual. Most people's experience of theft is through "auditors", a euphemistic term for the petty thieves and hoods that steal cell phones, wallets, purse and the like. Auditors work mostly in teams, finding a mark and distracting their attention while another makes for whatever they're after. Even the wariest person can fall victim. They are, for the most part, professionals.
Occasionally they're caught, and a story comes through my family that while he was stuck in traffic one of my cousins found a guy trying to pinch his cellphone through the open driver's-side window. My cousin quickly rolled up the window and drove on, with the thief caught up to his elbow, running along side the car.
But not every victim is so lucky. Last month an 18-year-old Indian women was shot in the head during a car-jacking. Last year another women, a white expat, was killed and her body dumped in the bush after thieves stole her car. The market for stolen SUVs in the Congo is so great that car-jackers don't bother to strip down the car or even remove the licence plates before driving north to the border
My Father's House
.But car-jacking is only one part of the most deadly organized crime. A few weeks ago a death notice in Zambia's independent daily newspaper, The Post, was notable for the cause of death: the man had been gunned down by burglars in his own yard, in front of his children. The litany goes on.
Private security in Lusaka, and every other major city in Africa, is a growth industry. For about $200 per month (plus meals) one can hire a paramilitary officer and his Kalashnikov, for "protective service", mostly of commercial spaces.
Another cousin of mine works as a supervisor for a security firm in the capital. His men carry pistols and shotguns and are trained to shoot to kill. The police some years ago took a similar stand, shooting first and asking later, but for the most part the cops seem either unwilling or incapable of curbing crime.
Recently, more than one writer to the Op-Ed page of the Post bemoaned the fact that while an opposition politician can be arrested by a posse of 40 officers none show up when called to a robbery or home invasion. In fact the police here are almost a running joke, more efficient at staging road blocks and taking bribes than catching crooks.
For the most part it's caution and luck which keeps robbers at bay. When I walk the main streets of Lusaka I stroll brusquely and with purpose, my sunglasses on, a hard stare and my shoulders squared. Last time I was here my 6 foot 3 inch tall brother was with me. I am much more vulnerable alone, and keep a sharper eye, avoiding answering the cat-calls ("Howzit Bwana?", or "Hey Big Man, how are you?" etc) because my accent could compromise my safety.
But for the most part, on the streets in broad daylight I'm safe (I never travel alone at night, and no sane Zambian does either). Like those bystanders on the fly-over bridge screaming abuses at the purse-snatchers, most Zambians are honest, law-abiding people, and almost as prone to robbery as I am.
Usually petty theft is a question of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've seen a woman mugged in the subway system in Toronto, and know a guy who was robbed on two different occasions in the central train station in Amsterdam.
The one place that caution and luck don't seem to be so effective is in the home. In Zambia those who can afford it barricade themselves behind high walls, razor wire or electric fences. One of our neighbours has not only an electric fence but a system of rolling steel shutters that bar the windows and doors when they're away.
Down the road, another couple, old friends of the family, have twice been robbed at gun-point in their home. The first time they awoke to find thugs armed with AK-47s at the foot of their bed. To hear them talk about that experience four years ago when I was here last was to hear how emotionally and psychologically disturbed they were after the robbery.
But even with increased security they were attacked again, when thieves broke through the roof over the kitchen. The couple now have electrified wire at the top of a towering cinder-block wall, and metal bars over their bedroom door. At night they lock
themselves in.
All of this is rather worrying when I consider how vulnerable my father's house is. We're almost alone in the neighbourhood for having no electric fence, guard dogs or even a wall around the ten-acre property. As I write this it's possible that someone could come up to the house and peep through the curtains.
When my mom and dad built this house, in the late 70s, they found a witchdoctor to bless and protect it. Despite some minor break-ins over the years the house has remain relatively unscathed, while our more security-conscious neighbours have been plagued by robberies.
(These were most likely inside jobs carried out by associates of the labourers working on the neighbours' ostentatious mansions. For a while there were so many robberies in the area that the neighbours burned down the brush covering a portion of my father's property, claiming that the tall grass was a hiding place for thieves).
But even the most powerful witchdoctor's curse can't last more than 20 years, or calm the nerves of people who stay here. When a relative of mine visited from England in 2001 she couldn't sleep at night for the lack of security. She even had her husband install motion-sensor lights but still stayed awake through the night.
On one of the rare occasions when I was home alone at night I planned to spend my time writing at the dining room table, but ended up turning on all the lights (starting with the motion sensors) and locking myself in the TV room. I sleep with a metal-tipped club by my bed, taken from my father's collection.
Hopefully the meagre weapon will prove unnecessary, but nonetheless I add it to my list of precautions. Surely most would-be thieves around here know there's not much to be had in this house, though they might be tempted to re-emerge now that I'm living here, with my digital cameras, laptop and other goodies locked away in a "safe room" which, despite a stout lock and heavy door, has been burglarized once before.
No doubt I'd feel more safe if there was at least a wall and some dogs around the property, though the dogs can be rendered useless by thieves who smear themselves with lion urine, procured from a near-by zoo, which scares away even the most fearless guard dogs. Instead I rely on the vagaries of luck and common sense.
On leaving the Agricultural Show I tighten the grip on my shoulder bag and work my way through the dense crowd. "How are you, Big Man?" I hear some guy call to me as he passes by my left side, deftly brushing his fingers over my back pocket. "Nice try," I say, turning back to him, and catch the next mini-bus out of there.
