They were all missing … Liz’s swimsuit (they call them swim ‘costumes’ here), Jean’s shirts, Jon’s underwear and other things that we didn’t even know of.
It got increasingly disturbing when that underwear supply got thinner and thinner.
This was the situation some time ago at the back of our house, from the clothes rack where our laundry dries daily in the Ugandan sun.
Until one day when we saw and caught the little thief, a little Ugandan girl no bigger than a waif, who had tried to run off, half tripping over her heist for the day, items that she had tried to stuff down her pants and up her shirt, items now trailing and falling at her feet.
‘A little further’ she then said, along with her older accomplice. The two sat in the back of our vehicle with our nanny and a university security guard for good measure, this girl along with her older accomplice. ‘A little further.’
And so, wanting to deal with this by simply meeting the parents or auntie or whoever, we drove as the two girls instructed us to their homes … down a narrowing dirt road just a little bit further.
It was getting dark before we realized they were leading us on a wild ride to nowhere, and, while I personally didn’t feel good about this turn of events, security then insisted on bringing the two girls to the local precinct where, if they were lucky, they could sleep on the floor which was solid dirt.
Part 2 tomorrow …