The Craziest Experience of My Life – Part I: The Robbery
// March 9th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Uncategorized
Months ago, when I decided to pursue living in Africa, I told many of you that one of my reasons for doing so was simply that I wanted to have some good stories to tell one day. You know. When you are old, with grandchildren sitting on knee, you dream of being able to look back and recall your life experiences…sharing incredible tales and “whoppers” with them, as they look on with beady eyes and mouths gaped open in disbelief. The kind of stories where they say, “Tell us again! Again! Again! Again! Oh please!” And you say, “Oh, I’ve told you that one a hundred times.” To which they reply, “I know, but it’s my favorite!” Well my friends, when I said that I wanted stories, I never could have imagined that I would have one quite like this to tell…the craziest experience of my life.
Once upon a time, in a land far far away…Ok. So really, just two weeks ago, in Rwanda, in the middle of Africa. It was 5:30 in the morning. I had woken up earlier than usual, to skype with my favorite person. I quickly took a shower to wake myself up, slipped on some sweats and opened the door from our room to the den, preparing to get chat t 6:00 am. However, as I flicked on the light to the living area, something immediately clicked in my mind that everything was not right as it should have been. I noticed that my netbook was not where I had left it, charging the night before on the arm of the couch. Perhaps someone had borrowed it, I thought. Then, I noticed that neither Kelly nor Anna’s laptops were on the coffee table where they had left them. Hmmmm. Maybe they had taken them into their rooms to use the night before? And then, I saw that my other laptop, on the kitchen table, was also missing along with my backpack leaning next to it. My vision narrowed, my mind became blurry and there was a faint ringing in my ears. My heart began to speed up and my breathing shortened. I grabbed the front door…locked. Then, I jogged to the back of the house and to my horror, the back door sat there…wide open. No Bob in the breezeway to greet me in the morning, as usual, with his french press and laptop, busy at work at the crack of dawn. The horror hit me like a swift punch to the gut…we had been robbed.
I woke up Anna and told her the news as softly as possible. We began waking everyone up to tell them the bad news. Someone had been in our house, as we slept, had taken our things, and left, without a trace. Of course, our night guard had no idea what had happened…completely oblivious. To make matters worse, his English is very poor. Mostly all he can muster up is, “I’m fiiiiiiiiiiiine.” So, we contacted Bishop John’s son, Andrew, who came over promptly to translate and put us in contact with the police. We called all of our guards to come to our house immediately, to be aware of what had taken place and ask them questions concerning the matter.
While waiting eagerly for the police to arrive, we examined the yard and the perimeter walls around the house. To my great surprise, Bob discovered that the thief had taken my Bible and my journals out of my backpack and thrown them into the grass by the side of the house. What a blessing! The computers were valuable, no doubt. But, not nearly as valuable or important to me than the very things they counted as rubbish…thrown to the ground. I was so thankful to have the returned so quickly! In all, they came away with those four laptops and chargers, my bag, with my camera, checkbooks, rain jacket, and other small items inside, a set of keys to our house, a broken skype cell phone from the house, a computer monitor, Griffin’s iTouch and Kindle, a router and some other wires, and some dvds. All of it, more than likely stuffed into my bag…on its way to who knows where!? They also left a large rock in one of the chairs in the living area. Whether it was to break open the door, or break open someone’s head if they came out, we’ll never know. Thank goodness! The circumstances could have been so much worse and we are all thankful for our safety through all of this.
The police arrived and began taking pictures and asking questions. They appeared just as shocked as we were. We decided that it had already been an emotional morning, so we took most of the day off to process the whole ordeal. Two more sets of police stopped by our house throughout the day. Each time, increasing in rank within the Rwandan police force. They assured us that they were not going to take this robbery lightly and that they would fully investigate the matter. We had all of the locks to the house changed that day. I managed to change all of my passwords, and I went by the bank and canceled those sets of checks. All of our guards were taken into police custody for the next three days for questioning, as the search for our stolen items and the criminal behind the robbery began. Bewildered and shocked, the long day had finally ended. As I lay my head down that night, all I could think was, “Welcome to Africa!”.
Part II: The Recovery (coming soon)
