Bologna Oh Bologna notes #11 – A little bit of worry at the Embassy

Bologna Oh Bologna notes #11 – A little bit of worry at the Embassy

Getting the visa at the Italian Embassy was arranged by the panitia. So it was a breeze. I only had to be there for about an hour or so and the interview only took 2 minutes. They only asked me where I’m going and when I’ll be leaving. I actually learned how to say Nice to meet you in Italian : Piacere di conoscerti. But as it turned out.. Everybody in the visa department of the Italian embassy are Indonesians haha :).

One thing, however, …. I had a little bit of worry at the Embassy...

Before I entered the embassy, I was asked to turn off my cellphone. A normal procedure, I guess. So I did and went inside. After I was inside, I remembered that I should have at least told my husband that I was going to turn off my cellphone for an hour or so. What if he tried to contact me and he couldn’t and he got worried? What if he got a call that said that I was hospitalized and needed money and so he had to transfer a certain amount? He would then try to call me and if he couldn’t reach me, he would think that I was really lying helplessly at the hospital, right?

My worry did not come out of thin air. We heard such things happening and only a few days before it happened to us!

t was Java Jazz.  I’m not the type of person who go to live concerts (especially when you have to pay to go inside a crowded area and have to stand to watch something from a far that you can’t even tell whether it’s really your artist up there or just an impersonator). But my daughter, being a teenager that she is, insisted on going. And besides, I happened to have free tickets from my colleague at the office. So I entrusted my daughter to my office colleague and they went.

After the concert, my husband picked my daughter up at 1 am and they arrived home before 2 am. At 2 am, when my daughter was already sleeping safely in her bed, our house phone rang. When we picked up, on the other side was a girl crying, telling us that she was our daughter and that she was arrested by the police for possession of drug.  And soon the phone was taken over by a man, telling us that he was a police at Mabes and that he suggested that we settle this outside the system (secara kekeluargaan).

Had I not seen with my own eyes that my daughter was sleeping soundly in her bed,  I would have panicked. Still, it was shocking and unnerving to get that kind of call at 2 in the morning. How did he know my daughter’s name? How did he know our house phone number? And the strangest thing of all, how did he know that my daughter was out at Java Jazz that night? (She very seldom goes out till late).

I guess we just have to be extra careful these days.

Till tomorrow.