Shit happens !

And shit did happen to my dear friend Roger P. last week!

(The following story is Roger's account of what transpired in his office.)

Well Gang,

One of the major reasons I came back here was that I missed the sense of adventure that is part of day to day PNG life.  Well I got it - and then some.  

Last Thursday afternoon a young man entered my office (the door had been  unlocked for a few minutes - for the first time all day) and asked if I knew who he was.  I thought his face was vaguely familiar but I didn't know his name so I replied that I didn't.  He then pulled a homemade gun out of his bilum (bag) and said he was a friend of a student whose life I had ruined and he was going to kill me.  Well the slender pipe taped to a crude wooden stock looked as likely to blow up in the shooter's face as fire a shot, and it couldn't have taken more than a 22 cal. round, so while I was respectful of it, I wasn't too worried about it killing me, except by a very lucky shot - and he'd only have one.  The guy didn't really seem to have his heart in it either.

I adopted a co-operative but obstructionist attitude where I did everything he said but only after doing the opposite a few times first.. He said, "Don't come any closer", so I took another step.  He stepped back saying, "DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!"  I feigned another step toward him and saw his face really harden and his hand pull back the spring that was the crude weapon's trigger, so I stepped back.  He told me to face the wall and I did, but when he told me to put my hands on the wall I turned back around and asked why.  It was obvious he was getting more and more flustered that things weren't going the way he had rehearsed them.

Then all the while I was telling him he was being really stupid and, if we just sat down and talked, surely we could work out whatever problem his friend had.  He kept telling me to shut up and I just kept talking.  Finally I figured if he was serious, he would have shot me by now - I know I would have - so when he threw me a roll of tape and told me to tape my ankles together, I figured he was planning a getaway.

I still remained obstinate and said, "If you're going to kill me. why should I help you do it?"  He drew back on the trigger and was looking pretty angry so I backed off and taped my ankles loosely.  He then told me to turn around and put my hands behind my back.  I held them out in front of me.  He went around me and taped my hands behind me, wrapped a band or two of tape around my head - over my mouth.  At that time I figured I was out of real danger.  I mean why would he worry about my yelling if he was going to fire a shot.  Of course he might have just been tired of hearing me yak.

Anyhow, I guessed right because he grabbed the department's laptop, which was on my desk and my flash-drive and took off.  It took me about 5 seconds to slip out of the sorry tape job he'd done and I was yelling for security before he was out of the building.  By the time I got down to the office the secretary had already called the main gate and the culprit was nabbed trying to get out.  The laptop was totalled in the scuffle but the young miscreant is in jail, and 'me im orait' (for those of you not familiar with pidgin - sound it out).  I wasn't quite as cool as I always imagined I would be in such a situation, nor did I pull any of the John Wayne moves I had fantasised but I like to think I handled things alright.  I didn't get shot anyway, so I guess I did something right.  The kid turned out to be a student who had failed all his courses.  I guess I didn't recognise him because he was in class so seldom.  Probably a good thing I didn't recognise him - he might have felt more compelled to shoot me if I had known who he was.  I'm still not sure why it was I who had ruined his life.

Of course I was the only one around and my office is a bit remote from the others.  At the moment Rahim (the HOD) is on leave, and national academic staff are on strike.  So I'm - wait for it - acting HOD.  Now normally this is just a caretaker position - shuffling memos off to the proper person etc. but as the only non-citizen still here, I am the whole department.  So far I've finalized last semester's marks, hired two new lecturers, accepted 45 new students for next year and recommended all the academic awards for graduation.  If I had known being the target for disgruntled students was part of the job, I might have gone on leave myself.

Merry Christmas, all,  roger (still alive and kicking)