Robbed!

Super Bowl Sunday is actually Super Bowl Monday here in Uganda. Kickoff is at 2:30 AM local time. I actually didn’t have much interest in watching this year’s game, but my son Brody wanted to get up and watch it with me. I figured a little father-son bonding time would be a good thing. A couple of minutes before half time, our dog started barking (not so abnormal). About 30 seconds later I heard a man shouting (very abnormal!). I went over to the window and my guard Simon frantically explained that he’d just seen someone on the compound. I unlocked the back door and went out to further assess the situation. Simon explained to me that he had heard the dog barking so he came out from his room to see why. He saw a man dressed in black walking in the back corner of the yard. He shouted at him, and the guy took off running. He disappeared in the darkness under some trees. Simon speculated that he had jumped the fence to the next compound, which didn’t make much sense to me because our neighbor is a very big man with armed guards. Going on to his compound would be suicide, and I hadn’t heard any gunshots. We looked around a bit more in the area where the man was seen and couldn’t find anything of interest. Satisfied that we were safe and that the bandit had gone, I returned to my sofa for the second half, bummed that I had missed Madonna’s half time performance.

The game ended as dawn was breaking, and I went back into our bedroom. I immediately noticed that two of the screens in our room were pushed open. February is the hottest time of the year here, so sleeping with the windows open is a must. The windows have bars over them and then a screen covering them to keep out the bugs. The screens swing open toward the inside of the room. I woke up Suzy to ask her about the screens. She had no idea how they got open. Then she noticed that the basket on her bedside table was gone. Then she thought about her purse- also gone. I checked the area around the other open screen where we keep some books and our camera. The books were there, but the camera was gone. Then I went outside and found the missing basket and Suzy’s purse on the ground and a long wooden stick. The thief had apparently reached in and grabbed the basket and camera and then used the stick to reach further into the room to get the purse. All of this happened a foot and a half from Suzy’s head as she slept peacefully. He had taken money, some jewelry, and Suzy’s mobile phone. He left the purse, the basket and all the other contents he didn’t want at the base of the house.

If you’ve been robbed before you know how unsettling it is, and we have certainly gone through those emotions this week. We’ve taken steps to increase the security of our compound by putting razor wire along the front wall. I’ve also secured the screens and windows better and given my night guard a new place to sit. We also are keenly aware that things could have been much worse. The thief didn’t get away with much. My wallet, the car keys, and some electronics were close to some other windows that the thief didn’t get into. So it’s fair to say that we’re a bit rattled by this occurrence, yet we are also very thankful that the Lord protected us physically and that the damage done was minimal.