New experiences – Getting robbed

It was Wednesday night in Guadalajara and I was heading back from a fair well party of my friends. I had all my computer gear with me because I copied some of the photos from the past semester to my friends. Camera with all the stuff was with me as is the case when ever I leave the bed. The rain had stopped when I left the party. I was heading to local supermarket to buy credit to my phone.

It seemed I ran out of luck because it started raining like hell after only few minutes of leaving the party. It didn’t really bother me that much. I emptied my pockets and put everything inside my backpack and put the rain cover over it. Homeless people were sleeping all over the streets. They had searched some cover under storefronts. The unlucky ones who had chose the East side of the streets were now getting wet because the wind blew the rain sideways on their resting places.

I entered the supermarket on the busiest street of Guadalajara and bought some credit to my phone. After leaving the store I started thinking that a Taxi might be a good idea. There was no sign of the rain ending so I walked right next to the stores wall. After maybe 30 or 40 meters two guys jumped in front of me behind a ventilation system. There wasn’t really any doubt what they were up to. 30 seconds later they were running away while the other one of them made sure I wasn’t going to follow them by throwing a brick at me. The very same brick he had been holding in his hand the whole time. He missed. Probably intentionally. Like it matters.

A homeless guy had woken up next to the place of the robbery and he was now watching me. We didn’t talk but both knew that shit happens every now and then. I wasn’t really looking for sympathy from this guy since I could tell he had been through a lot more than me. I went to the other side of the street. Tried to stop a police car. Twice. After getting totally soaked by the passing police cars I decided to take a taxi. It was time to call it a night. Luckily I had saved 500 pesos to my thigh pocket. That was enough to get me back to bed.

I really don’t care how many times I get robbed. Having said that it’s not an incident I want to happen again anytime soon. This time I got lucky and nothing happened. The worst thing was all the things I lost. I had probably 80% of my valuables with me and 100% of my work from the past 6 months. Luckily I have backups of most of my photos on DVD’s I burned before my beach break. Those photos from the beach you can now see only on my front page where every day there is a new photo. Those DVD backups are only RAW photos so all the organizing to over 10 000 photos is wasted. I’m not going to start listing all the other stuff what I lost because the same thing happened to me in Spain 2 years ago when my hard drive blew. It’s easier to just forget what was lost than start remembering all those things. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.

I was suppose to go to South of Mexico and from there to Guatemala. This robbery forces me to rethink my non existing plan. The new plan is to fly to some big city in USA and buy all the stuff all over again. The only obstacle to this plan comes from Finnish bureaucracy with the banks. I hope those problems are solved as soon as possible so I get to move on.

If you think getting robbed clean would be the end of the trip, think again. I see this as a fresh start. I was already starting to get an ulcer of all the unfinished things relating to photography. Now non of that matters. There are no unfinished businesses. There is just me and my father’s emergency-use-only credit card.

There is a reason why idiot’s win. They are so stupid that they just get up and try again. Once again the idiot in me won – I do it now.

PS. I have some photos that are looking for a new home. Some of them might be reserved already but if you are interested of adopting some of them, let me know.

See the photos here.
Price:
Postal fees + what ever you feel like. I’ve estimated that I spent about 5 euros per photos. That would be nice to get back.
Size:
black and white photos are 8″ x 10″ with own made frames (lot prettier frames than the ones that are seen on the example photos)
Color photos are 11″ x 14″ printed on maybe 5mm cardboard.
Techinque:
the black and whites are developed by me.
Color photos are printed in store.

Those photos are uniques in a way that I’ve lost the all original Photoshoped files and maybe even some of the original RAW files. They might not be the best photos I’ve got since they are printed for school projects but I guess all my “babies” deserve a chance to get a loving home :P
Good foster parents contact me at: nestori.virtanen(at)gmail.com