It’s sad that thieves can walk into your home, steal and leave
You’re just going to have to accept that this is Nairobi, you’ll never get your things back.” His words struck a chord. It’s true, no matter how much we tried philosophised, theorised and agonised over the situation, our stuff was never coming back.
This conversation happened over dinner 24 hours exactly after an unknown thief (or thieves) broke into our seemingly secure haven and robbed us of all our materially valuable possessions.
Nothing quite explains how violated you can feel when you walk into your home and see that someone has been in there. But we were lucky, we weren’t there and nobody was hurt.
Here are a few valuable lessons that I learnt:
• Twitter is Nairobi’s best security resource. If it weren’t for twitter I wouldn’t have known how to contact the police.
Luckily after the break-in at a friend’s place a week prior I asked for help on twitter and got a number which I used after our break-in. So, for everyone else who may not know, the number to call is: 020 3556 771. Save it.
• Get rid of your jua kali security company (or upgrade it to a reputable one). Honestly, these guys are just there to give you a sense of false security.
Having spoken to the cops today, the guys hired by these companies are the biggest ‘insiders’ and culprits of break-ins.
If you’re determined to keep this comfort blanket, be sure to know what their protocol would be in the case of a robbery
• Nairobi police are not useless. When I called the cops two cars got to the apartment within 10 minutes. Ok, these guys weren’t the brightest crayons in the box but at least they got there.
It is the team that came the next day who impressed me. These guys did some finger-printing, looked like they knew what they were doing, didn’t ask for a bribe and gave good advice.
I know they won’t get us our stuff back but it was a step up from what I’d expected from Nairobi police.