The Value of Trust and the Relativity of Value

We were robbed.   And I don’t mean in the US/Belgium match.  We were actually robbed.  Actually, twice.  The first time, it was more of a pick-pocketing.  Out dancing, a man approached Amanda with a card case in his hands – is it yours, he asked?  No, but it was Katie’s.  In the frenzy that followed, we realized items that had been in purses were now strewn on the dancefloor, and we scurried to collect them.  Ultimately, things were missing – phones, wallets, pride.  In hindsight, the man who seemed to be the hero, the rescuer, was very likely part of the plot to take our things.  Was it at that moment of distraction that the job was finished?  Or had the damage already been done?   We’ll never know for sure.

Last weekend, we headed south west, crossing the equator, to Lake Mburo inside a national game park. We spent Saturday under the beautiful African sun driving through the breezy park en route to a campsite, quietly rolling along among zebras, impalas, warthogs, water buffalo, monkeys, baboons.  It was magical.  We took turns riding atop our pop-top van, snapped photos, took it all in.

  

photo credit:  Ka'ili Jackson

photo credit:  Ka'ili Jackson

photo credit:  Ka'ili Jackson

  

We played volleyball, had a campfire, and set up tents near hippo-occupied territory; one hilariously terrifying moment had everyone screaming and piling into the van as hippo footsteps were detected on the shore of the lake.  

photo credit:  Ka'ili Jackson

We dozed on and off throughout the night, under the dark sky, the bright stars, and the milky way, to the sounds of hippos snorting, the distant screeching of sparring somethings, and by early morning, incredible bird songs like I’ve never heard before.




I woke groggily to the sound of one of our group shouting “No!” along with other less benign expressions of disbelief.  She was on the phone with another of our group who had stayed behind and was calling to report that overnight our apartments had been robbed.  Six laptops, a GPS camera, an iphone, an external drive, a wifi stick, $350 in cash, and a passport along with other forms of identification and monificiation.

our apartment building in Kampala, pre-robbery

The following 48 hours was filled with trying to piece together what had happened.  Inside job or a case of straight-up casing the joint by an outsider?  Had they used the keys to enter, or had they come through the balconies or windows?  Had they climbed up from the ground floor or had they started on the roof and worked their way down?  Why were some apartments robbed and not others?  And on it went.  Strange details like missing shoelaces that would later turn up in other people’s apartments, and scarves tied together from one balcony did more to confuse than resolve.

Conspiracy theories began to fly.  People from outside of our group got involved, introducing theories and speculation:  Why were none of the apartment electronics taken – was the owner been in on it?  Had the kind cleaning staff been used for information?  Had it been the night guard whom we had fed dinners and watched movies with?  Why was he still there when the theft was first discovered, if he was to ultimately disappear?  Had he been planning it for weeks, once he realized we were leaving on weekends?  Why had some apartments been hit, but not others?  Why did it take the police so many hours to show up?  And why wouldn’t they take our statements seriously?  Whose contact had they been?  Was the manager trustworthy?  The landlord?  Little by little, our suspicions were so heightened that it seemed we should trust no one.  

There was an outpouring of sympathy from our Ugandan colleagues and friends.  When we arrived back on Sunday, the young gate guard had is head down and we detected a tear.  The cleaning staff told us how sorry they were.  But like, deeply sorry – not just a passing sentiment.  I subsequently became embarrassed.  The guard who owns three shirts, and sees us leave every day in new outfits, carrying our laptops, and come home every night with bags of groceries.  The cleaning staff who cleans our beautiful large sunny tiled apartments with running hot water and pristine white sheets and sinksful of dishes following our indulgent dinners. They watch us pile into vans with our camping gear and our abundance of food, and take off, carefree.  These sweet concerned people who have nothing.  

We are students, we owe crap tons of tuition, NYC rents are crazy.  We are by no means wealthy.  But compared to what surrounds us every day, we have everything.  Anything we could want.  Any weekend activity we can think of.  We all walk around here muttering that we can’t afford this or that, but the truth is, we can.  If we choose to. But not everyone has that choice. 

I cannot imagine the living conditions of these people who were so deeply hurt by our taken things.  I have walked through the informal settlements, and seen the conditions in which people live.  The impossibly close quarters, the communal toilets that are just holes in the floor and stink to high heaven, the lack of access to water, the smells, the noise, the animals, the garbage, the dust, the mud, the filth.  

A woman and her three children living in a space slightly larger than my bathroom, that also operates as her small shop during the daytime hours. There are no windows, there is no power, there is no security.  I imagine our staff here lives in conditions much like these.

Our mantra in response to this sympathy became “at least no one was hurt.”  But honestly, thank goodness.   People were home in the apartment complex at the time of the theft; it certainly could have happened.  Our things were taken, and these things of course have a value.  But there was more lost than just these things.  The monetary value of our stuff diminishes significantly in light of the loss of security and the sense of being safe.  That was truly what was taken from us.  It becomes quickly apparent that this one detail entirely changes how we value our things, just as the value becomes reframed against the intense privation around us on a daily basis.  Value is relative.  

We had let our guard down; yes, we had trusted.  And that trust had been laughed at.  So what now?  Trust no one?  Innocent until proven guilty or guilty until proven trustworthy?  Here, we were warned, trust must be earned.  If you trust someone, you don’t trust his brother, simply because he is his brother.  The brother must earn the trust himself.

I love east Africa.  There is so much to love about it.  But there is a hesitation about a life framed by trusting no one, as the default.  I think of the victims of human trafficking, in every major city around the world – in Mumbai, in Kuala Lumpur, in Kampala, in New York City.  They are taken from their homes, many to countries in which they cannot communicate.  If they come from places where the authorities are corrupt and cannot be relied upon for help, that sentiment is reinforced, even if it is not the case, to breed distrust.  They are strategically kept away from people who speak their languages, to remove any possibility of building alliances.   What an unimaginably terrifying feeling.  To be able to trust absolutely not one living soul.  Here, there are 11 others with whom I can align, discuss, sympathize, advocate, understand, plus our program coordinator and her trusted contacts. And we still feel victimized, violated, and vulnerable.   It feels unjust and we are indignant.  

Millions and millions have lost their lives as they know them, their dignity, their futures, their souls.  After this incident, I find myself somewhere between contentment, accepting that the things taken were only things, and the feeling of compromised safety that comes with such a violation.  On Saturday, I would have valued my laptop as high among my assets, and was probably giving very little emotional energy to the value of safety.  In one day, the hierarchy is upended.  Yes, value is relative.  And the more I can continue to keep that perspective, the more I am freed up to value those things in life that are truly important. 

photo credit:  Ka'ili Jackson