Mettre en lumière des femmes d\'exception aux horizons différents, afin d\'inspirer et de donner de l\'espoir au reste de la Communauté des Femmes

Blackberry’s are useful things, I never used mine to go on the internet or use the chat, but I did have precious pictures on it and a lot of info, the usual numbers and contacts, but also books I wanted to read, quotes I liked etc.

On Wednesday it got stolen together with my hand bag, purse and house keys…

I was walking around down town Quito with Anna, the night before she left to go back to Vienna, when a guy simply tore the bag from my shoulder, ripping the two handles right off. He ran away behind me and one of his friends followed him. I grabbed the friend by the upper arm and ran with him for a few steps until I almost collided with a street pole. Nobody helped, ran after them or tried to stop them. I was also wearing high heels and there no chance I could have caught them.

I understand why people here don’t help. About two weeks ago a lady I know here, who lives in my area, told me about how her upstairs neighbour was stabbed to death in his apartment. Granted, he had a lot of dodgy friends he brought over, but still… People here are scared. Those thieves could have drawn a knife, and for what? $20, keys they can’t use and an old Balckberry. It has happened before.

I like living in Quito, but this annoys me tremendously. Later on Anna and I still had a good time getting tipsy, writing in our diary and laughing like there was no tomorrow. But when we left the restaurant where we ate to go to a concert nearby, literally 1 block away, we had to take a taxi because the area is dangerous. It really limits you and I feel it daily. I miss being able to ride a bike around town at all hours of the night without worrying too much. Of course you have to be careful everywhere you live, but in Europe people do have a kind of freedom people here do not have. I feel like I don’t know Quito yet because I am not able to just go and explore it whenever I want (or have time work wise).

Two days after the bag got stolen (I had already retrieved my phone number and bought a cheap new phone) a girl called me asking jealously where Fabian something or other is. I said I didn’t know him and when I asked her for his name again she hung up. Considering this I am torn about what to do, do I try to offer somebody money to give me back the phone? Or do I want to stay away from any more trouble by not being in contact with these people? Not sure about what to do yet, one thing I know is that the police are not a great help in that respect. Every police officer I met in connection with this has been kind but not helpful… That’s another story.

One beautiful and amazing thing that happened during the theft was that something very precious fell out of the bag while the guy was running away with it. A diary that Anna and I started writing together in 2007.

Almost every time we see each other we write in it about our dreams, fears and generally about what is going on in our lives at the moment. It simply fell out : ) We could not believe it. That was really lucky. Later on that evening we wrote in it some more and reflected upon how to be ‘zen’ and let go of material things while partying… The evening turned out to be a lot of fun still, and really, the most important thing is that nothing worse happened. Need to keep my eyes peeled around here, that’s for sure.

If anybody is still reading : ) lots of love from Quito!

Chiara