Robbed!

Hell, my life is so fucking exciting these days I can make 3 full sasons of high quality TV entertainment! It would be a mix between Prison Break, CSI and Days of our lives. It would KO anything else on TV! The fact is that half the excitement could kill you due to alarmingly high blood pressure.

I am so fucking worked up and angry right now! Somebody got into our property this morning and stole 3 laptops and a cellphone. Somehow they have managed to open the gate and get in. Next step was to choose one of the 3 units, which happened to be ours in the back. This happened at 06.45 in the morning whilst we are walking around inside the house getting ready for school and work.

My wife is sitting outside on the patio having a smoke, then goes to the bathroom to get ready. At the same time my 10 year old daughter notices a black man looking in through the window, obviously scouting and looking for an opportunity. Next door he has already passed the office window and seen our laptops. My daughter calls the maid; “Somebody is looking for you Martha”, alternatively thinking it could be a new garden boy. She then runs upstairs to change into her school uniform. Meanwhile the thief takes the opportunity to walk in through the patio, the kitchen, the lounge and into the study for the loot. On the way out he meets the maid in the kitchen, greets her nicely “hello”, and walks out. Martha was shocked, and before any of us knew it, he was gone. A brand new red Golf GTI was seen parked outside the gate 30-45min earlier.

Money and material goods are replacable. What else could have happened is more alarming. The guy was brave enough to go inside in daylight when people are walking around inside the house. What if somebody surprised him properly and blocked his escape route? How far would he have gone to get away?! Very far I’m afraid judging from the stories I hear in this country! When you take such a risk, you must be prepared for all possibilities. I am quite convinced he had a gun or knife, in case! I am happy we did not loose any family members today. I’d say we were fortunate despite the incident! A thief like that, I would not mind killing 10 times if inside my house!

3 times now during a year in South Africa I’ve been robbed. The 2 last months has been a bloody wild west! I actually miss my “civilized” home country where a burglary is national news in all the media. People are generally nice there! You don’t have to watch your back every second of the day and barricade yourself inside your own house. I am SO bloody sick and tired, frustrated and angry.

The complete and utter hatred and anger is hard to handle right now! I don’t know where to direct it. I miss this thief’s face as a punching bag. I have shouted, screamed and yelled at everybody around me, family and police included for petty little things. I feel sorry for my family having to deal with me right now, but the police properly deserved it all!! They arrived 1 hour 15 minutes after the incident… which is late enough… then after 3 hours the police arrives again not knowing somebody had already been there to open a docket. Worse still is that upset as we were the police lady started shouting at me because she had to wait at the gate… The intercom didn’t work, but it didn’t strike her that it could have been tampered with by the thief. Besides we did not expect any more police by that time, and they had our phone number to get in. Second time she went on about the intercom I exploded right in her face, shouted and swore at her and threw them out – kicked out the police!

I am ready to kill the next unfamiliar face I see inside my house in a gruesome manner unless they’ve made an appointment with me for a very good reason. Better safe than sorry and no questions asked! The policeman that came later in the day for fingerprints gave me advice… off the record I assume it must have been. “You can kill the thief inside your own house. But make sure he is dead, because otherwise he will come for you. You must do it properly!” I’m taking one step back and thinking, this guy is a policeman… I level with the guy though! So far, I’ve been concerned with prevention and keeping the tsotsi’s away. When that’s useless, then you better think of ways to annihilate efficiently any threat to your family!

At some point it gets serious, and you gotta stop joking about Crossbows and harpoon guns and get down to business like your intruder. I am happy nobody was killed today. Next time we’ll flip in around and make sure only a miracle can save the intruders life! A permit and whatever it takes is an insignificant hurdle!

I wish the whole world could be advised to stay away and not fuck with my family! Unfortunately the whole world is not reading this blog, and it’s not especially targeted at the rogue segment of the population either! Maybe I must make an example of the next uninvited guest. I’m reading about the early Africa explorers facing tribes who put their enemies’ heads on poles outside the village! Moulay Ismail, a self proclaimed sultan in Morocco, was given hundreds of sets of ears as a trophy from his son. Because of the extreme heat and stink, only the ears were kept as trophy. The Sultan was very content! His intention was to send them as grim reminders to chieftains suspected of rebellion. However, the trophies pleased him so much he decided to keep them for himself. Eventually the ears were strung on cords and hung up along the city walls. That’s a clear message!

In India, the British colonial power placed gibbets on the roadside to display bodies of executed thugs. This happened as late as the 1860’s to stop the infamous system of Thuggee. I’m in a former colony too… the wild west lawless feeling is striking, and how civilized are we here in the darkest African continent really? Beating around the bush is a sign of weakness. Maybe I just have to be raw, beyond any intruder’s imagination and expectation and use some proven methods!

Can anybody recommend a good weapon for me please? Not a pussy thing, but one that can do the job and preferably finish it with one bullet?! I’ve been in the army, and among the 4 best shooters in my platoon, so I’m confident that the quality of the job is purely up to the weapon of choice. Dirty Harry had a very good point; “As I am holding a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and can easily clean your head off the body, you gotta ask yourself a question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?!” I am thinking an automatic would be better and enabling me to shoot short series of 3-5 bullets at the time. Given these specifications I am listening to advice and suggestions.

We have just recovered after our “friend” looted our account of 11 grand. Now, we are down again with an estimated 45 grand! Equally important was the contents on the laptops, and now I’m chiseling blogposts into rocks in lack of my dearest laptop. Who knows how soon we’ll be online again? By the time I get this typed and ready for publishing I will read it again and probably think the tone is too harsh or extreme and start altering. I know myself that well. A good trick for me has always been to hold back e-mails until I cool down. After a few hours or next day the e-mail is revised and kosher for the right person to read. This time I won’t let that happen though. I want it left authentic like it was written in the heat of everything!

Crime, Sun Tzu and Green Mambas

People constantly ask me how on earth we could move from Norway to South Africa… and looking at me like I’m cuckoo, in delusion and not 100%. To which I can mention countless arguments… but of course there are pros… and cons! One of the cons is of course security and the crime issues here… and I assume the reason that people think we’re mad.

For seven years I’ve come here on vacation, and of course seen the high walls, the barking dogs and the “armed response” signs on the gates. I’ve seen the headlines in the newspapers. Still we have not been scared off, at least not enough to not settle down here. Once you are here though, the same stories and headlines have more effect on you. Always in the back of your mind…

Relatively, we have spent more money on housing and finding the right area with security than we would have bothered with in Norway. I’m comparing apples and pears, I know, but still! Then we’ve carried on living and felt safe and comfortable. All the stories have been about “other people”, living in less secure areas or something to that effect. I’ve been in denial - denying for myself the fact that this happens right under my own nose… but to “others”, not me!

Right before we moved from Johannesburg, Fourways (Lonehill Village Estate), there was a woman in the complex that was traumatized after thieves had broken in, threatened her and locked her up and who knows what else. The day I delivered the keys, a security guard was held at gunpoint and needed psychological treatment… Maybe “Fort Knox” wasn’t that safe after all?

Now we’ve moved to a micro-complex here in Pretoria… and security wise left more to ourselves. Considering the area and the high walls with electric fencing, we’ve felt pretty safe and comfortable. The first few days the alarm went off 3-4 times, but we knew that it was just a tree that caused it and needed a trim. For 3 months now it’s been no problem. Suddenly, Friday night at 2 o’clock in the morning, the alarm goes off! The whole family is alarmed and we are scouting out of the windows. Eventually, the father in the house, has to go out and check… and turn off the alarm. Before switching off the alarm though, I walk down to the gate armed with my diving knife that looks like a Rambo knife. Can’t see anything in the dark, so eventually I turn the alarm off and we all go back to bed.

After a thorough check on Monday morning though, we find that the electric fence was actually cut right next to the gate. Clean cut with a tool! This is in a corner towards the neighbor’s property, and I was standing right there that night… The neighbor’s wall was just for show in ancient times, and not meant to keep anybody out. With no particular effort, you can climb up that wall and face only a 40-50cm electric hurdle over to our property.

I’m talking to the armed security guards who are patrolling our area, and telling them what’s happened. “This wall is useless”; he is saying about the neighbor’s wall. Actually, it is very “useful” I’m telling them, but for the thieves! “Stairs, a ladder… or a wall like this makes no difference”! The guards are laughing at me. Are these guys to be trusted? Maybe they are bringing in some extra cash during the nights, and now finding the perfect loopholes with my aid?! How stupid can I be!! I should learn to trust nobody here I think…

“Why the hell did they cut the wire, when they could just jump over the fence?!” I’m thinking. They were either non confrontational, or stupid! Non confrontational thieves have no business in South Africa, which could only confirm once again Pablo’s second ape theory in my mind! They were just too bloody stupid to understand how easy it was… but blew it with their lack of IQ, thank god! Or were they just checking out the security measures, the alarm system and the guy with the Rambo knife… only to come back when we are comfortable and naively ignorant again?! Hmmm, which is it??? Brainers or not???

I’ve been pondering again lately… what if it happens again, brainers or not?! You can always have 911 on a speed dial… but with all the stories I’ve heard I shouldn’t count too much on the police. Now I’ve got those patrolling security guards on a speed dial… but thinking maybe we should sign up with one of these security companies also… for us privately! I still don’t feel satisfied…

Maybe I should get a weapon for self defense?! Not a gun… that would be too much of hassle with permits and stuff. As a diver I’ve wanted to get a harpoon gun. A diver with a passion for spear fishing should of course have a decent harpoon gun. If not a harpoon gun, then a cross bow! It would be silent and painful... and give the thieves a valuable lesson…hehe! As a kid I was playing with bow and arrow and dipping the arrows in adder venom like the pygmies in my Phantom magazines. I caught the adders in the woods… played with them and kept them as pets… and combined my two hobbies you might say. Nothing “of significance” fell prey to my lethal arrows back then, but maybe I should look for some mambas and pick it up again?! I know a place around the corner where mambas grow on trees…This is war, and I know my art of war! Sun Tzu says; “Know your enemy”. The thief comes to me, not the other way around, and there are millions of thieves around so it’s hard to provide sufficient intelligence for little me. I could at least make sure I see them before they see me in the dark of the night! I will get some night vision binoculars like the ones that Hannibal Lecter used in Silence of the Lambs… Hannibal Lecter, Navy Seals and Jonny!

Sun Tzu further says; “Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance”! I will let him over the wall… let him come closer and watch his arrogance grow. Peace of cake he’ll think… just before my mamba arrow hits his bum. Quickly I will change position and fire from another angle and aim for buttock number two. He’ll think there is an army on his tail. The mamba arrows will burn worse than yesterday's extra hot peri peri chicken from Nandos, and he will beg me to let him go! Reluctantly I will release him and let him pass the word around… and sleep like a baby!

Harpoon gun or cross bow? Eenie meenie miney moe…