Ndabeledwa

It’s days like this when I really hate living in Malawi (before you continue reading I should make it clear that I have plenty of good days here as well, and hopefully there will be plenty more good days to come-but right now I’m not sure). After spending the night in the city I came home in the mid-morning. While approaching my house, I noticed from about 100ft away that my front door was wide open, and it immediately became clear to me that I’d been robbed. Strangely, my immediate reaction was curiosity (Are those @#$holes still in the house? Did they actually take anything, or did someone just open my front door (yeah right)? Is this really happening?). Then I entered the house, reality struck, and it hurt like hell. The first thing I realized was that they took two mountain bikes, mine and that of a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer whom is currently on vacation and was storing her bike at my house. “OK,” I thought, “Is that all they took?” No, absolutely not. Here’s the list that I’ve been able to compile the last six hours: Shortwave radio, new pair of running shoes that I got while at home during the holidays, Ipod, mattress, blankets, all of my silverware, battery recharger, digital camera, and the two mountain bikes that I have already mentioned. The funny thing is that a bunch of the items, such as the Ipod; battery recharger; and digital camera, will be completely useless to whatever idiot took them because they either forgot to take the charger or they don’t have the appropriate adapters and other junk to make those electronics work.

Another funny thing (I’m trying to look at the bright/funny side of all of this so that I don’t go off the deep end), is that a few days ago I was thinking about how lucky I’ve been that I haven’t had a single security problem in my 2+ years here. I guess I forgot to knock on wood. Many other Peace Corps Volunteers in Malawi have been robbed (actually most of them)-either at home while they are around or away, on the street, or even in the staff room while they are in class teaching. Perhaps I started to feel that this couldn’t happen to me and I became a bit careless, but either way I have received the wake up call.

Going back to the bright side of things, if they try to rob my house again, they won’t find much because they took most of the valuable stuff the first time around. They can go ahead and take my beans, other mattress, charcoal, and stained shirts; that’s about all I got now. The only things that I have left that are still valuable to me are my cell phone and computer, and I usually carry those two things on me so it will have to get ugly if they want that stuff.

The main thing that I’m concerned about right now is that this crap will continue to happen. Based on the experiences of other volunteers, it seems that if your house gets broken into once, it will continue to get broken into. It’s pretty obvious that whoever broke into the house was someone from nearby and they new that I was away last night. From now on, whenever I’m away for even one night, I’ll have to either expect the worst or look for another way to keep things secure. It looks like the best thing to do is have someone stay in the house while I’m gone, but this is a hassle because it requires more planning and it’s hard to find people that you can trust (plus, who’s wants to sleep in a house by themselves when thieves are expected to come?). If this continues to happen (this isn’t the first time, the volunteer that lived in the house before me also had an “incident” less than a year ago), it may be best for me to just get the heck out of hear, but for now I don’t want to think about that option.

Before I continue I should make it clear that all of this just happened so I may be a little emotionally unstable right now. Perhaps some of the stuff will be found and returned to me, and perhaps the people that did this will be caught. However, I doubt any of this will happen. When I filed a report at the police station they didn’t seem all that enthusiastic to help me out: “If we here anything we will let you know, or it you hear any rumors you should let us know.” (How about you getting off your butt and doing an investigation since your title is “Police Investigator.”) I don’t need all that crap anyway. Who needs a bike when you can walk? Who needs an Ipod when you can sing like me? Who needs silverware when you have two hands with all ten fingers? Who needs a digital camera when you have sharp eyes and a brain to remember everything? Unfortunately, without a camera I will be posting a lot less pictures on this blog. Hopefully you will find my writing interesting enough. It should be pretty interesting if exciting stuff like this continues to happen to me…

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21