Foreign volunteer robbed of all he had

A foreign Greenpeace volunteer returned to where he was staying in Hamilton East at the end of the weekend to find all his belongings had been stolen.

Two years ago, 26-year-old Belgian man Stéphane Cytryn quit his job as an engineer to travel the world.

He spent a year and a half walking and hitchhiking from Europe to Asia living on less than $3 a day. He slept in the “craziest slums” of Asia with the poorest people on earth and never had anything stolen.

“All those people have been so kind to me, treating me like family, offering me dinner, a place to sleep. Everything they could despite the fact they had nothing,” Stéphane said.

Then he came to New Zealand.

Stéphane travelled here to work with Greenpeace, planting hundreds of trees in Northland.

While he was away the place he was staying at in Hamilton was robbed. No fingerprints were left at the scene.

“They took everything I had despite the fact I had pretty much nothing. My whole life fits in a 50-litre backpack.”

Among the stolen items was Stéphane’s journal. He had been documenting his travels in the journal for a book he was writing. He had most of the entries on his computer, which was also stolen, but had backups. But, the entries from the last month were in the journal only. 

Stéphane had planned to spend a month in the South Island to enjoy the mountains but all his gear was stolen.

“My gear is expensive to help me survive those conditions. But they took it all,” Stéphane said. “All those things I’ve worked so hard to get and those I’ve been relying on for the past years. All gone.”

Stéphane traveled to the south this week.

“I worked hard to pay for that trip. I survived -40-degree snowstorms in Mongolian Taiga, militaries in Myanmar, Laos jungles, I’ll survive those idiots. But I’ll have to handle very tricky hikes with no gear.”