Lord of the thiefs

A while ago the peace and quiet of Kijabe was disturbed by some daring thiefs who were going around the station to see what they can take. One afternoon, everybody else was gone, Dorothy was in a meeting in Nairobi, the kids were in school and nobody else was around the house, I came home from the Hospital to get some lunch. When I entered the house I felt something was different but I couldn’t really know what it was. I started eating what I had prepared but kept on feeling something weird. So I got up and went toward the bedroom and found that the rest of the house was in a total mess. Drawers on the floor and everything strewn around, wallets opened, Kenyan shillings gone but Dollars and Euros still there.

I was wondering what to do, called the security guys from the Hospital, wondered together whether we should call the Police, finally did so and they said they would come if we could get them. So, I took the car and drove to the Police station and picked them up. They glanced over everything and said they would try to see what could be done.

Days later the Police called me and said they found a guy who admitted entering our house. I went and talked to the guy and he explained in detail how he entered the house and what he took and what he did with the things he stole. He actually managed to get through our bedroom window which has grills on it. They are 21 by 27 cm. Everybody was just surprised how a 17 year old guy could possibly pass through such a narrow grill.

Unfortunately it was too late to retrieve any of the things he stole, he sold it at a nearby transit highway where truckdrivers go all the way to Kongo and Sudan, therefore very little chance to get anything back. Videocameras and phones were quite a painful loss. However it was a nice closure for us to see the guy ending up in the prison cell. A couple of days later we were all surprised that the series of robberies kept on being reported and it all sounded so similar to what happened in our house. Then we heard later on that the guy managed to escape from the Police cell and went right back to where he left his job earlier. Fortunately we was caught by some alert young students at the nearby school where our kids study. He was put back in prison and it seems we have some peace and quiet back again.

We just heard that the thiefs father was shot by the police not long ago and his brother was caught stealing vegetables from a garden. What usually happens when a thief gets caught: the mob beats him up puts a tyre around the body and sets him on fire. That is exactly what happened, that is how the brother died. But thanks to the relative order we enjoy in our place everybody would abstain from such a form of justice and would let the justice system take its course.

So much to our story: Lord of the thiefs