Click image for larger view

We should have known better than to leave the bus alone, with all our stuff in it. There we were - five foreigners with fancy digital cameras, climbing into the waiting fishing boat. Jazzy and Kavitha both checked to see if the door was locked, while I snapped pictures of the river, some kids watching us, and the boat. We felt safe, and our guides hadn't seemed worried.

We checked out the river from the boat. We saw some old buildings that were deserted from the Iran/Iraq war. "We should get video of this!" I said, as we explored an old apartment building. So we headed back to the bus to get the camera.

Jazzy noticed it from far away. "Hey, it looks like that window is open!" Sure enough, a small window on the passenger side was shattered. We were robbed!

Click image for larger view

Our guide filed a report at the police station. " THE PICTURE!" I suddenly remembered. "I've got a picture of the kids that we saw when we first arrived!"

Click image for larger view

We rushed back to the police station, where I plugged in my computer, and pulled up the picture. All the policemen came in to look at the picture. They pointed at the kids, talked with each other, and then rushed out of the room. A few minutes later they brought in a 15 year-old boy. They had him look at the picture and tell them who the kids where. The police wanted all the names of the kids who took our stuff and so he told them.

Click image for larger view

I saw as one boy at a time was brought in, fingerprinted and written up. "This one had three tapes." "That one had the discman." "This one had your camera," etc, etc. Many of the parents had arrived. The told us how sorry they were for what had happened. One man spoke a little English. "My son not bad! I am sorry!" he said. I let the parents know that we weren't angry with them, and that we were very sorry about their sons. They apologized over and over.

Click image for larger view

We got most of our stuff back but we still felt bad for families of the young boys who had stolen from us. They would have to pay a fine and would maybe go to jail. We left the town hoping that the judge would not be too angry with the boys.

Abeja