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last night i was walking home on little ring road north of the trade and development bank, same as i've done at all times of the day and night all year. i passed a guy and the next thing i knew i was on the concrete and he had clamped his hand on my mouth. i struggled and he ran off with my ipod. i had been out saying goodbye to all the peace corps volunteers i won't be seeing again, and it was around 3am. i didn't see his face. he looked young, with a baseball cap and shorts. i then ran to my building and sat crying near the front door for a while because i did not want my mother to see me so upset.
two guys in uniform came over, telling me not to cry and asking what happened. one of them, the security guard for the building next to mine, asked me to walk back down the street, as far as i understood to look around for people there. instead he started asking if i had a husband or a boyfriend, then wanted me to take a "short cut" that was actually longer behind some buildings, and i said no. then when we got back to my building he wanted me to come to eat with him, and i said no again, and when my front door was locked he did not want me to go wake up the family that opens the door for people who come in after midnight, but by then it was 4am and i was very tired so i said no again and the daughter of the family let me in.
all today, according to the mother and daughter, the security guy was waiting outside my building to collect "thank you" money from me for "saving me" from an attacker when i was "really drunk." i was certainly tired and bleary on my way home, but not drunk, and actually very awake after the adrenaline rush when i was attacked. all the same, i feel really, really unsafe because the guy works about twenty feet from my front door.

i've got a cut lip and a scrape on my wrist and a limp from where he kicked me knee to take me down, but otherwise i'm all right.