While I have been working most of the weekend on catching up on this blog, I'm breaking my rule about chronology to tell you about a disturbing part of my weekend.
I went to the Arcades Market on Sunday for a final round of shopping. While Caroline and Justin were meeting up with me later, I decided to get an early start and treat myself to coffee and reading my book at the Mimosa Cafe. I referenced this cafe in my Chaminuka posting. As I was reading my book and sipping my coffee, I looked up to see a man at a table near mine video tapping me. He was sitting at a table with 4 others, trying to hide his video camera under his hat. I looked at him, but he didn't move. First thought was to move to the other side of the table to clearly say "I see what you're doing" and to get out of the way, but truly, I just needed to get out of there. So I packed up my book and notebook and sat with my purse on my lap until I could ask my waitress for my bill. I kept staring the guy down and he finally got up and moved...to another table where he pointed the camera at me again. Finally, my waitress appeared as did another friend of mine from USAID. I waved and he came over to the table to say hello. I informed him of the situation, paid and walked to the other end of the cafe to wait on someone from his group that was at the ATM. As we were standing there he noticed that another table of guys had a more sophisticated TV camera in a cardboard box tapping another table at the cafe.
While I have no idea what these people were up to, I reported the incident to the embassy this morning. Yikes. I wished that I either reported it to the owner of the cafe and/or walked up to the guy to ask: "What the...???" Instead, I just got the heck out of dodge, but that's probably just as well.
This is the second time that something used as an example from my security briefing has actually happened to me and thus, I will no longer make fun of such briefings.
Cape Town: the last trip for awhile...
14 years ago
4 comments:
Ooh, creepy. When do you get back to the US? Will we have to have the SRMUN motorcade waiting to transport you to the conference from the airport again? And by motorcade, I mean a Honda. Hey, at least it's fuel efficient!
Yikes, why did they think that they were filming you?
For humors sake, I really hope your were going to be on some sort of Zambian Candid Camera but the alarmist/ risk manager in me says that they were filming you for some criminal reason. Not sure if you are going to be kidnapped and sold into prostitution (told you I was an alarmist) but I think you need to stay away from the Mimosa Cafe. Actually, I don't think, I demand you stay away. Americans bring a pretty penny in any city they are ransomed. Stay safe
No worries. It was def my farwell tour. Despite the fact that I'm WAY WAY behind on this blog. I'm packing tonight for my return home. I'm just as sketched out as you are.
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