Continuous Theft

I know this may not be a happy post but it is real and it is true. One of the most unhappy things about living in a new culture is the initial price tag for being different. Organizations that raise money for this or that project in Africa, Asia, or wherever, may never tell you what percentage of your gifts are spent toward replacing what was stolen. How much of it was actually stolen and how much was wasted on paying people who have come to pose as skilled workers with fake documents, who have turned up to be damaging to the organization. I believe to not be transparent and real about these things is rather deceptive. It continues the bad cycle of filling Africa with beggars dependent upon western aid and western people believing that they are in fact helping when they are in fact harming.

If I could, I would become one of those people that don’t exit their homes for years at a time. I dread to drive anywhere. I don’t want to be peered at and seen. I realize how far it has gotten when I hear my daughters talk. Last night as I was sitting on the porch with them a neighbor came to peer at us from behind a banana tree. 

I waved and said, “Hello, can I help you?” 

Likely, she did not understand because she said nothing and continued to watch us. 

Why is she watching us? I queried out loud to the twins. 

“Because she wants to steal our monies and buy soda,” one twin responded. 

Stephen’s last remaining functioning business got robbed to the gills again last Friday. I don’t know how he will continue ahead. The business is now non-functioning and we owe what would consist of half my current stipend from Vision per month. If we don’t pay the loan, the bank comes after the land our house sits on.

To say this is as dark as it has ever been is an understatement. It only seems to get worse the longer I stay.

I spent the weekend at the house most of the day with Stephen and the twins. I now spend the nights at Vision for Africa, where it seems even the hoards of mosquitoes and the rats are a reprieve from the thieves. We didn’t have much to say to each other. He washed the clothes and cooked and tended to the garden. I slept, sat and stared into space and also cooked and washed dishes and tended to the girls. There doesn’t seem to be too much to say these days. After all, I doubt I will contribute toward anything new.

Contrast this to the days when we were apart, I in America and he in Uganda. We spoke often and with enthusiasm about the future. We spoke of our plans and aspirations. Things looked up for him. And they truly were positive and working in the upward direction. But now it seems that the presence of me and our daughters has cast a negative shadow over everything we had hoped for. We truly cannot live together here. We will be punished for it till we give up.

Is it a condition of the curse? The curse that was somehow put upon Stephen which dictates that if he is together with me, he will always incur continuous loss. Is it because we are white? Stephen now also is white and there are a limited amount of things that white people are allowed to do here. Giving out money and services being the primary thing. Failure to comply with those expectations necessitates that the community will force us to give the things they believe they are due, because we are simply stubborn and do not know our place. Is it because Stephen is Ugandan, behaving like a Ugandan in error, because he truly now is white to his own people. Like any white person, he is now no longer allowed to have a business, otherwise thieves will target it and continually plunder it. 

How can we be allowed to live in peace?