The more time I had to mull over the wallet-snatching incident the more it seemed like a blessing in disguise. It told me more about the country in a moment than I might have learned in months. It became a touchstone in helping me interpret what was going on around me

It laid bare the reality of the place and the fundamental absurdity (from a certain angle) of my being there. I don’t mean to imply that it was a bad or dangerous place. Certainly there were dangers and thieves, but that’s not the lesson I learned. It’s more like I now knew more about the rules of the game and that’s important to me. I hate jumping into the middle of a game without first having a go at the rule book.

Till that point I was having trouble defending myself both physically and mentally. I couldn’t tell the difference between a friendly gesture and a prelude to hostilities. I received so much attention, physical and verbal, that it overloaded my senses. Common sense told me this or that really was hostile, but I didn’t want to believe it. To believe it meant shutting down. To have someone call out ‘hey you’ to me and then totally ignore them seemed impolite. To crouch over my combination lock and shield it with both hands and body seemed rude.

When total strangers touched and poked at my bike I didn’t tell them to stop. I thought I should be friendly and I thought perhaps the sense of private property was not so strong here. Now I saw that touching for what it was – a testing of limits to see what they could get away with in terms of taunting me or stealing from me.

The physical violence I’d experienced that so puzzled me also made more sense. It was, in all probability, the same strategy employed by the swarm gang that got my wallet. The man in the Mercato who nearly ripped me off the bicycle was the distraction. Certainly all my attention was on him and not on all the others around me and the pannier bag. He wasn’t as good as the leader of the swarm gang. His attack was too sudden and violent. It certainly got my attention, but it didn’t hold it and it put me on my guard. With the swarm there was still doubt in my mind whether this was hostile and I had a right to fight back or if these were just overly friendly and slightly mad street people. I was worried about offending local feeling and the swarm gang used that pscyhology against me whether they knew it or not.

The other man who rode his bicycle alongside mine and then kicked against the pannier bag was probably trying to knock me over to see what fell loose or trying to knock the bag loose or failing that setting up another distraction. In the end while trying to cut me off he was the one who lost control and wiped out, which I suppose was a small victory for the ferenji.

The profanity and taunts and jeers also began to make more sense. When I thought of them as simply random uses of English by people with nothing better to do with their time they really bothered me. I couldn’t understand how adults could fail to understand how hurtful that language was. I didn’t want to believe that it was real dislike, even hate and possibly with its basis in racism. Oddly enough it made me feel better to believe there was a certain amount of hatred for me because I am white. I can understand hate and racism. It was the apparent senseless nature of it that bothered me.

I was also gaining a clearer understanding of the street hustlers. I don’t mean the word ‘hustler’ in a pejorative sense. These were kids and teenagers without a family or job who were trying to survive and they did any number of things to make money. They hustled.

At first I responded to every overture. Every ‘hello Douglas’ got a hello back or at least a nod. But to think that these kids really got any pleasure from talking to me was totally naive. Only a dumb ferenji like me could believe such a thing. By saying ‘hello’ to them I was indicating that I could use their services. They come over and when I walked away without asking them to get me a cigarette, a newspaper, carry my bag or guard my bicycle, they understandably got a bit miffed.

“If you didn’t want my help, then why did you say hello?” they were probably thinking. And me, like a complete idiot, my first 3 or 4 days here I was going around shaking everyone’s hand! They must have thought I was a complete lunatic or at least an easy mark, a soft touch.

But this soft touch was learning fast. For the first time in my life I started using a money belt hidden under my clothing. I also had a second hidden pouch under my pants against my thigh containing the bulk of my local currency plus by emergency US cash. My day to day cash (50 birr maximum) I put in a slim plastic sleeve, inside a zippered pocket, hidden inside another pocket with a velcro closure. If it took a little longer to get at my money to pay a waitress or I had to bypass a beggar because it was too difficult to get out a birr note and I didn’t have any coins, well that’s life. In twelve days if I’d learned anything it was that I was definitely not in Kansas anymore.

I also took the time to revamp my room. The family made a special point of emptying a wardrobe with a lock for my use. I hadn’t used it because it seemed to imply mistrust. Now everything of value and even utility was locked away. I didn’t feel badly about it. In fact I knew that if something did go missing the family would be mortified and I owed it to them to help prevent such an occurrence. The windows in particular were poorly constructed and the latches wouldn’t have been proof against even the most timid pry bar.

My pannier bag also got its share of attention. All the outside zippered pockets had attracted dozens of busy fingers and I emptied them and placed the contents in the main compartment. The handy foldout map pouch, which the Arkel company so carefully designed and conveniently attached with velcro to the outside for easy detaching was permanently detached and put in the wardrobe. It was simply too tempting for thieves and too easy to get at. With everything in the main compartment I then locked it with a padlock. I thought about locking all the zippers with tiny locks while in Canada, but I thought that was too much trouble for the random, rare, and amateurish attempts at my belongings that I expected. I hadn’t counted on the all-out, non-stop, daily assault that is Ethiopia.

Getting ready to go out the next morning I felt like an ancient warrior girding himself for battle. The feeling was heightened with every click of a buckle, zip of a zipper and closing of a lock.

I told Abiy and Dereju about the theft and I was happy to note that there was no anger in me over it. Dereje and Abiy were also clearly relieved that I thought of the whole thing as an amusing adventure, a lesson learned and an anecdote for the future. Abiy himself had once had his pocket picked. The ruse of choice he said is for two kids to pretend to be fighting. One of them, the smaller one, will run to an adult for protection. The kid will wrap himself around your leg or waist while the other will attack. Moments later they’re both gone along with your wallet.

Tags: Canada, Ethiopia, Ethiopia Bike Trip, US