Theft

As if the events of the last 3 years weren’t hard enough, there were the pictures I took and kept and the videos capturing the moments I barely had time to savor of the twins’ birth and first 3 years. The pictures made the memory of the struggle so much easier to bear. Those videos captured the joyful moments. Two little girls in hyper mode before bedtime, hanging onto the crib rail for dear life as they jumped vigorously for 3 minutes, without missing a beat. If they would have let go, they would have launched themselves to the ceiling. Another video of double bath time in the double kitchen sink. They were 1.5 and auntie had just taught them how to splash water and they were both splashing as hard as they could. Another video of two yr old twins singing, “Ah-dee, Duh Day do do. Ah-dee Duh Day doo do.” One girl is seated at the dining table the other, Glory, is standing and swaying from side to side as was always her habit.

Even up to a month after the computer and my data was stolen; I could barely allow myself to think about it. My heart always sank at the thought and I felt hysterical crying welling in my chest at the loss. I had been sifting through the pictures and videos I had hurriedly downloaded for 3 years. In the 2 months I was in Uganda, I had been playing the videos and sorting the pictures, enjoying them and when I could, I showed a few to my husband who had missed the entire 3 years.  I had been preparing them for the “big download” and I had just discovered that my 1T. back-up hard drive had either been also stolen or had never made it in the bags going to Uganda. There was so much chaos at my house in the packing, it may not have made it. The other hard drive on which I had backed up all other photos from 15 years up to my pregnancy with the twins, somehow no longer has its cord to hook it up to the computer. It didn’t make it to Uganda either.

Since the loss, I have taken only a handful of pictures of the girls growing up. I am afraid to savor any such memories. I am certain they will also be stolen. I also have no way to save them since my husband’s computer has zero memory left for such things and it has 0% battery life and is ready to succumb to its viruses any day. My life has changed in that I no longer feel I can savor any material thing. It is not a irrational thought especially in the light of my particular circumstance. I am not sure how many times someone entered the house in which we first lived to steal various things. My Cybershot camera was the first thing to disappear. Likely, the maid assisted in disappearing that item. The toys I brought for the girls slowly disappeared, piece by piece. Then there was the big heist. Where the modem, the laptop, the cell phones disappeared in the middle of the night. It was soon after the caretaker’s 10 yr old son came and called my daughters by name, while they were watching their favorite movie. He was invited into the livingroom of our living quarters by my 3 yr old daughters. Big mistake. There is no reason for a 10 yr old boy to be interested in the things of 3 yr old girls. He was there to look and see what was available for the taking.

When my husband asked me in a sleepy stupor where the computer was, I flipped out. What I had on the computer, flashed before my eyes. I ran outside in the dark and began running down the deserted street. My husband close behind begging me to stop that this was dangerous. I was beginning to feel hysterical. I replied, “I don’t care, my life is on that computer, let them kill me too, I don’t care.”

I was completely distraught. Even the police wondered, why should I care so much about this, “Things get stolen here all the time.” Then I began to learn about how in this large city of many people, the odds are in your favor for getting picked out of the crowd by an opportunist. This is could very well be an every day occurrence. Many people’s entire day is spent wandering the streets looking for targets like me to steal from. Where I lived, I could go the whole day without seeing one white person, so that made me the neighborhood target. Every day someone would try to steal from me wither it was the gas station attendant. The hip looking guy who followed me home, making sure he made friends with my girls. The maid. It doesn’t take much to calculate that if someone succeeded in stealing every day, soon I wouldn’t have anything left. The worst part of that is that even if I had nothing, people wouldn’t believe me and they would still try to steal or force something out of me. That by far was the worst feeling.

After the computer got stolen, we had repeated night time break in attempts. I would hear someone try the door. I would get up put on my glasses then hear footsteps run away as I approached the door. Sometimes there would be multiple attempts per night. They would pop the locks on the van and search through it, leaving the door ajar. I was so frazzled by the morning, I was about to go crazy. Even my husband was having nightmares of armed robbery. I would hide in my house all day, when I was there. I would often nap because the sleep was so sparse at night. Then there was the night again. From 2 am to 4 am were the attempt at theft hours. By 5 am, I would be wide awake and would use that opportunity to get outside and walk the neighborhood. I didn’t want to be seen as white. The fewer eyes, the better. During the day, I drove with the windows up in my van so nobody could see my color.

I talk about this candidly so that I can remember. I never wanted to hid my experiences or put too much of a theoretical framework on my encounters. Part of why I wanted to wait to fundraise or ask for missionary support was because of the way supporters alter the stories. When someone gets sent to the third world, as a missionary, the stories that come back are edited. Supporters may want to hear a particular toward success story but also those in the field may have skewed perceptions on what others might want to hear. I want to avoid all of that and as much as possible to see with naked eyes.

While some may think it disrespectful to the culture, or even racist, for me to talk so much about the theft problem, I find that I experience an aspect of it on a daily basis. Some may think it forgivable that this or that gets stolen. After all, I am rich compared to the person who stole this or that. This is a fallacy but also, it is impossible to live responsibly on a budget, if the very your work you are doing is disrupted by theft. Theft in general is a problem self identified by more reflective people in the Ugandan culture. I was listening to Ugandan radio and heard one commentator speak frankly about the necessity for instilling within people a value for creating and working for the common good as opposed to continually looking for a way to steal. “When one gets hired, they immediately perceive this to be an opportunity to steal.” I find this kind of thinking to be beyond crazy but the majority engage in it. I don’t quite know how to handle or think about the race issue added to the theft issue, however, it would be very helpful to have a serious discussion with someone about how this is or is not racism.