holding up lollo

My beautiful friend Lollo, the mummy of the adorable M-Mei, was held-up at gun-point on Wednesday night on her way home from work in Port Moresby. Very unfortunately it does happen. I am so very very grateful she is ok and the new life she carries is safe and that her innate sense of calm let her deal with the situation.

Here is what she had to say:

Well it's finally happened to me. I got held up at gun point for the first time in my 29 years of life yesterday arvo at the Stop n shop car park near my haus at Waigani. Strange thing was, I was so calm about it, like I've always heard about it happening to everyone else and have often wondered how I would react if it ever happened to me.

I'm happy to say that for once all my precautionary measures paid off, my wallet had only 2toea coins in it, which I use for bus fare much to the disgust of the 'boss crew'. I carry all my notes in my bra and my mobile was in my jacket pocket. So basically all the guy took was my bilum with several shriveled up buais and dakas, my kambang film container, hand lotion, toothpaste and toothbrush, comb and my lunch box containing 2 week old mold coz it's been sitting in my office locker for that long.

I was a bit dazed after the incident, but I managed to calm down after saying a couple of prayers and thanking God for having survived.

So what have I learnt, well to be alert for one thing and not take situations for granted i.e. it's never happened before so it won't ever happen to me. I did get ticked off when some of my colleagues here in the office had the audacity to say to me 'Someone as big as you could have easily have beat the crap out of the guy'.

I was like 'Hello, he had a GUN, not to mention I have a 5 year old daughter, and one on the way, I am not going to put myself at risk for the sake of my bilum!!' Crike some people can be such A$$H#LES at times.

So anyway, just be cautious if you're ever out our way at Waigani and take all precautionary measures no matter how silly they seem, coz they might just come in handy when you least expect it.

I have also been robbed twice since I've been back - and that's only been 4 months!! One of them was an incredibly scary experience on the infamous highlands highway ... good to know I made it all the way across Afghanistan, Pakistan, illegally across western Tibet etc etc and I had to wait until I returned 'home' after a 3 year absence to suffer the scariest ordeal with guns and bush-knives ... where I was lucky to escape after being dragged into the bushes - will blog on it some other time.

It makes me mad. And sad.

Ricebag.