Panic In the Market

Sunday morning of 22nd May 2016, I decide to visit my cousins stand at the Pakati flea market at Arcades. It is an icy morning. The market is bustling with all kinds of people, albeit Zambia is hosting the Africa Development Bank annual conference, so yes the city is awash with dignitaries.

As we are seated by the stand we notice many passers by, as is obvious. Of particular interest is one young lady, 22, Chinese, I would say seemingly flippant in her attitude and  an aura of excitement within her . Oh! what catches our attention is the big sun hat she is wearing, large Ipad she is carrying and obviously her naivety. 

We give her a cheery greeting as we try to lure her to look at our wares, but no she has other things on her mind she scurry's off, of course to our disappointment.

Less than an hour later, this young lady comes dashing back at the stand  in a state of shock and panic, worse still she cannot express herself in English, she mumble jumbles something about the Ipad, and at that moment we know she has lost it. How pitiful she looks, she keeps pacing up and down, distraught, we try to calm her down and ask her to recollect where her last stop was. We tell her the direction we had last seen her go with  the Ipad. 

In a spate of  almost two hours she manages to engage all sorts of people she thinks can help her retrieve the Ipad, we all know at this point that the Ipad is a lost cause especially if she had placed it on some stand somewhere in the market whilst looking at the wares on sale.

At the time of my departure the Ipad has not been found, the young lady still frantic. 

It beats me to understand how distracted she was that she could loose her device in such careless fashion ....... remember, she could be a visitor, probably her first time in Zambia too. 

Is there anything that management of the premises can do to avert such similar occurrences? I can imagine the agony and inconvenience she is going through.

But I guess, as shoppers whichever, part of the world we are in , we have a responsibility to be watchful and cautious, we are accountable to ourselves, no one else is, but I suppose this could have been a case of an inexperienced traveler swayed by the trappings before her eyes.