So Much for Les Misérables

I finally feel like I officially live in Nairobi. 

While on my matatu trip to watch Les Misérables at the IMAX Theatre downtown, my iPhone was jacked. She was kidnapped. Straight up.

In the spirit of Monseigneur Bienvenu, I feel as though I should have offered this mysterious Jean Valjean my wallet, too. 

Okay, not really. 

What was supposed to be a day of relaxing and resting of watching Les Misérables turned into living it. I was, quite literally, one of "The Miserable Ones."

Needless to say, I skipped the movie and spent the next four hours either waiting or jumping through bureaucratic hoops to file a (probably inconsequential) police report to track my iPhone's whereabouts. While sitting on a bench as the lone mzungu in Central Police Station, I was compelled to shift my perspective on the day's events.

While taking the necessary, albeit probably futile, steps to find an inanimate object of zero eternal significance, I wondered how International Justice Mission Kenya's clients -- small children who have been brutally raped and men and women who have been falsely accused and illegally detained -- languish for YEARS, hopelessly waiting to receive justice while most of the poor and oppressed here never do. It was humbling and convicting to sit in the same police station as many of them, yet without my life, liberty, or anything else of value on the line.

It turns out my situation isn't so miserable after all.

New perspective: if I care enough to go through the trouble of locating a stupid iPhone, I sure as heck must endure on behalf of those who have no hope. 

Lesson learned, case closed.

Honestly, I don't care too much about the iPhone anymore. I'll get a new one. Hakuna matata.

So much for Les Misérables.