Knock, Knock, Nobody's Home

Well, I think I updated the blog a few days too early.  My boring old life here in the village isn’t so boring anymore!

 

This morning my house got broken into and all my money and some electronics were stolen.  Yay for me!  The sad part is that I didn’t take the broken lock as a sign of a burglary until hours later. 

 

Upon entering my house during break time I noticed that some of my things had been moved on my trunk.  Freaked out, I checked and saw that all of my expensive things were still here.  So, of course that meant I was crazy and nothing was stolen.  Hours later I come home from a computer class to hear that one of my neighbors saw one of the learners leave the yard.  So, upon closer inspection of my things, I noticed that all of my money (both Namibian and American) was gone, as well as my iPod, speakers, and a memory stick.

 

As you do when you are robbed, we called the police, and I was able to spend the next few hours freaking out about the security of my home as well as my missing things.  The door to the house wouldn’t lock, and it was getting late.  I could honestly care less about the money.  Yes it was a lot of money, but I have enough to survive.  But now I didn’t feel safe in my own home.

 

Thankfully the learner who my neighbor saw wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.  He had only gone a few kilometers away in the hours it had been since he had broken in and we had reported it.  The police quickly caught him, and in an act of even greater stupidity he had (almost) all of my things on his person.

 

Que scene where I spent the next few hours of filling out a statement with the police, and trying to fix the door.  Door problem solved temporarily and ridiculously long statement finished.  Unfortunately I will probably have to court to give my statement and testify against the kid.

 

The saddest part is that this was a learner at my school.  He was a repeater in Grade 10, and had finished his exams 2 days prior.  He left to go home, like all of the other Grade 10s, but decided to stay a few extra days for some ‘extra-curricular activities’.  It makes me so sad that kids are doing these things, especially to their own teachers.  It really shows how few opportunities these kids think they have in life.

 

If there’s one good thing that came out of this, is that the Peace Corps understands the limitations of my village and what we can fix so that this does not happen again.  I am looking forward to seeing the improvements and now I am extra positive that getting a dog is a good idea.  If he is sitting at my door, people are much less likely to try to break in.  I was tempted to have a moat built around the house, and fill it with hippos.  But, I’m too lazy to dig that trench and don’t think it’d be a good detention for the kids.  Also, the hippos would probably not get along very well with the dog.  Too bad. 

 

It seems that as soon as I say life is boring here, something comes along to spice up my life a bit.  I hope that next time instead of someone robbing me, it’s something really cool like winning the lottery or seeing all my kids get A’s on their essays.  One can wish!