Steem greetings, friends of the steem for Bangladesh community. Welcome to my blog as I share my ideas following the week five engagement challenge.
This week's discussion dwells on “my story of losing a precious thing”. In life, we all have that valuable thing be it an object, document or material item, which, when missing, we feel like part of our body is missing. Today, I will share with you all a precious document I lost which affected me for some time. I hope you find pleasure in reading through it.
Have you ever lost something very important to you?
I experienced the loss of a valuable document once, which was my national identity card. This was one of the documents that one cannot do without in my country-Cameroon.
Front picture of my original national identity card.
Growing up as a kid and also understanding from laws of the state shows that it is only during a state of emergency that every police checkpoint check on the identity of everyone to be sure of who is who.
Back picture of my original national Identity Card
To my greatest surprise, it shows that since 1972, Cameroon has always been in a state of emergency because, at every police checkpoint, everyone is required to present the document before passing.
The worst of it all is the police harassment you experience if you do not have the document in 2016 when the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon went extremely violent. One could not move even around your house without your identification document.
In 2019, I was attacked by thieves and went away with my wallet containing my identity card. During this period, I had just renewed the document because the first one got expired. When it is renewed, it takes at least three months for the original document to be out. So, I was still having the receipt, which was proof of my identity.
I stayed for about two weeks at home and could not even go to work because I was afraid of being interrogated by the police.
What emotions did you experience upon losing the item?
It was like a nightmare to me, and I thought that one day I would pass by that spot and will see my empty wallet with my identity card.
As I said earlier, I was unable to go anywhere, even to go to work, for over two weeks. Each time my husband went out, I will ask him to pass by the spot and see if maybe the thieves had dropped my identity card.
It was frustrating as I thought of the long queue I went through before I could make the document.
Did you do anything to find it?What was the result?
Of course, as I earlier made mention, I had to walk around the spot where I was attacked to see if they had dropped my document there. But this was not helpful after following up for about two weeks.
Also, I had a friend who worked at a radio station; we announced it at the radio station and even promised a ransom but to no avail.
I was equally advised to go to the drivers’ union in town to check because there were several abandoned identity cards there. I went there and could not find it.
Since I was still using the receipt, and I had a scanned copy, I printed the scanned copy and went to the police station, and luckily, the original document was available.
What steps do you follow to avoid losing such precious items in the future?
No matter how vigilant we claimed to be, at times, we still lost precious items. However, the first step I always take to avoid losing, especially a document, is that scan all my documents and save them on Google Drive. This way, I can access them at any given moment.
The second step is that make colour copies of all my documents and keep them in a file at home.
Lastly, I share copies of all valuable documents with family members in case of any emergency need.
I have completed my presentation, and I am inviting @abialfatih, @saxopedia, @majerius, @mesola, @ruthjoe and @m-fdo to share their entries to the challenge if they have not yet done it.