It’s been the strangest thing to
get back, not least because I had the aftermath of the break-ins to deal
with. I had a good attitude. Be strong – don’t let the thieving bastard
win and this is despite a 3rd break-in that happened more or less a
week after my second break-in. Thankfully
this was not in my house. Unfortunately
it was in another volunteer’s house in the neighbouring region, in the next
biggest town south of Bolga, about a 3 hours drive away. This is Penny’s*
house. She is 71 years old, to look at
her you may think she was older… Ghana has not suited her health wise; she has
lost a lot of weight (she didn’t need too) and frankly looks like she could be
blown over in the next puff of wind.
Frail I would say in body… but not
in mind. She lives’ there with Rachel* (in her 60’s), the lady who has a room
set up at my house and splits her time between mine and Penny’s house, although
spends more time at Penny’s…. She and I had stuff stolen in the Bolga robbery.
Abby*, a Bolga volunteer was travelling so just happened to be staying there
that night. Their break-in involved banging
on the gate, which led them to open the door; Unfortunately two Muslim men had
already hauled themselves over the wall and were hiding behind the door, they
pushed their way in using machetes as weapons. The women spent a significant
time bound and gagged and had all their things taken. It would appear they had been staking the
house out for some time as the asked where the white man was, unfortunately the
white man only stayed their occasionally and wasn’t there on that day. Clearly I’m much better off that they are,
having not been subjected to a physical attack, (although no one was actually
hurt in this thankfully). Rachel and
Abby went to Accra while Penny decided to go straight back to the house…
everyone dealing with the emotional aftermath in their own way. But what was clear from Rachel and Abbys
recollections of events was that hindsight and the ability to laugh about such
things is a real healer. You might be
wondering how one can laugh about being bound and gagged…It seem there are two
types of criminals in Ghana, the stupid and cowardly who get caught (‘my guy’ –
more on ‘White Spot’ later) and the just plain stupid. The 3rd break in involved the
‘just plain stupid’ kind. They were
described as young men, Muslim who had clearly been watching too many movies and
this robbery was quite possibly their first. You see the binding wasn’t enough to hold the
women’s hands bound together, they just pretended it was, leaving them free to
defend themselves should it become necessary and the gagging was also somewhat
of a failure. When discovering an
unopened bottle of single malt whisky in Penny’s wardrobe the stupido robber
took the moral high ground, aghast that this elderly woman should be drinking. It would seem that no one had had the
conversation with them about where, morally, robbing people sat on that ‘morality
continuum’. Oh, the irony of being robbed while the robber gives you addressing
down about your drinking habits. One stupido
robber also found it acceptable to place the machete next to the badly gagged
and bound woman he was holding against her will and then turn his back on
her. She considered the possibility of
grabbing it and whacking him round the head with it but rightly so, with
another stupido arse in the house, decided against it. I firmly believe that such sharp items are more
dangerous the more stupid the person holding them is, so I feel, a wise
decision indeed by the white woman being held against her will...
*Names have been changed
 |
| My welcome home from Leela and Hanana was this bunting and a house that had been turned the right way up... god love those girls! |
After just a few hours sleep
having arrived from Accra in the early hours of the morning, I was shouted at
in the usual way by Redwana from across the road, excited to tell me ‘He is
back, the Teif is back, now go and tell the police!’ (Ghanaians don’t pronounce
their ‘th’s’; dat is de way don’t you know…) Me telling the ever present patrolling
police of this remarkable development led to around 20 police men and women assembling
en mass in the space of about 3 minutes then splitting in two to surround and
dramatically arrest ‘White Spot’ (unusually speedy behaviour for Ghana). White Spot being the stupid thieving coward
of a man that broke into my house twice (although there is no evidence for him
doing me over the first time) with his stupid cowardly thieving mates. I don’t know White Spot (thank god – it was a
fear I had), probably because two weeks before he was thieving from my house he
was locked up in jail. His compounds is
just two compounds behind mine and unfortunately he has a mother and a brother
who have been protecting him (mother and brother are up for charges of harbouring
a criminal – yeay!). White Spot is very stupido. He has a very distinguishing feature. A perfect
circular patch of white hair in the middle of his black hair on the back of his
head. For a robber who spends most of his
time running away with his back to you, you would have thought either a
different profession or some hair dye was in order. I had the ‘pleasure’ of
riding with White Spot in the police truck and spoke, more like spat at him in
a very ‘Mad white woman’ kind of way asking him why he did it while I listened
to him telling me it wasn’t him and telling me ‘Madam, soon you will know, it
was not me’. I asked him how old he was
and which school he went to. As he was 15 he told me he went to Abilba #1. I told him I would be having words with the
head teacher. The policemen just laughed
telling me he was not 15, he was lying.
Lying to my f***ing face so he would go to borstal rather than prison. What an arsehole. I wanted to punch his
lights out but given I was sharing the truck with 5 Kalashnikov brandishing
policemen I thought better of it. Anyway
I knew he was going to have to share that hideous, rat infested, hot, sweaty
cell with a million other naked men until his case went to trial… I took
comfort in that. Who would have known I ran an Amnesty International club in a
previous life?
With all this having gone on, despite
my initial bravado, I was a little wobbly.
Still I managed night 1 perfectly fine, although in hindsight I didn’t
sleep all that well. Still, positive
attitude remained. Don’t let the bastard
get you down, this continued into night two until about 2.30 -3pm, when I heard
a bit of noise in what seemed to be my compound, beside my bedroom window by
the poly tank… something like plastic buckets being moved around on
concrete. Not too long later I was brave
enough to go and check this noise by poking my head through the louvered window
slats (not brave enough to go outside I might add)… bravado quickly diminishing…I
saw some shadows but convinced myself that my mind was playing tricks on me and
spent the rest of the night fitfully sleeping trying to grab the remnants of
any bravado that might be hanging around in the ether with my head firmly under
the covers… coz it’s safer there. The
next morning, tired but alive, I ventured out to Hanana’s shop to pick up some
bread. It was at this point I realised I
couldn’t get out of my compound; someone had pulled the gate latch on the
outside, and locked me in. I opened the
house back up, grabbed my phone and phoned Hanana to get her to let me out. Before
I got back to my gate she was telling me the gate was open, I felt like I was
going mad. I tentatively opened the gate fully only to see a small boy, maybe 7
years old outside the gate with a whacking great big smile on his face looking
like he needed a damn good wash. I asked him what he was doing. It was at this point he started to laugh at
me. A real full on chilling, evil laugh, (clearly heightened by the madness
which was evolving in my mind). ‘Someone
in your compound’, ‘Someone in your compound’ was all I could understand from
him. I tentatively walked back up to the
house only to be dumfounded by what was on my veranda
table. Boris’s water bowl, with a black
rubber inside containing some dodgy looking vegetables and a 5litre plastic
water container. Now my mind was
switching to juju… I confronted the boy with the things (who just gave his
chilling evil laugh again) and took the plastic water container. By this time Hanana had arrived and was
talking to him in FraFra… unfortunately he wasn’t responding clearly and after
another chilling evil laugh directed at Hanana it became clear this boy was ‘not
all there’. Visions of juju and madness evaporated now I had a safe, secure and
logic explanation (for the boys behaviour at least). It became apparent he had been outside my
gate since before light, wielding a slingshot and refusing to leave. The neighbouring nightwatchman (who’s about
150 years old, as much good as a chocolate teapot and with no English to speak
of) kept calling the boy a wizard…. In Ghanaian terms that means he should have
been ‘put down’ at birth… not great.
Still the Wizard continued with his chilling evil laugh. Eventually a passing neighbour recognised him
and knew the family so walked him back, which was great, as I had spent about
10 mins trying to find out who he was, where he came from and why he was there
with only a ‘There’s someone in your compound’ as an answer. By 7am Kwame had arrive (yes this was all
before 7am In the morning!) to do my washing and shortly after a couple of
builders had turned up to sort out the gate and measure up for an iron gate on
my front door (instigated by my frenzied phone call to the landlord at the
crack arse of dawn.. I think he sensed the mad solomea in me at that point,
hence the unusually prompt appearance of help).
They were all gone by 10 am and at this point I decided to go round to
the poly tank to see what I could see… maybe there was someone there last
night. It was about this time I came
face to face with the Biggest Turkey in the World just beside the house. How had it been overlooked ALL morning? Juju popped into my head again, while I tried
to shoo the thing away whilst simultaneously wondering if I could keep it till
Christmas. It wasn’t budging, just
shitting. Someone had tied it to the house…then
the pieces of the puzzle started to make sense; ‘Someone is in your compound’
probably translated to someTHING… ie a Turkey. The water running in the early
hours of the morning, the plastic water container and boris’s bowl… water for
the Turkey and the boy and the sling shot – protecting his... his pet Turkey?
I do have an overactive
imagination at times but I have to be very grateful for the volunteers… they’ve
been great. James turned up later that day and did all things practical to put some
semblance of normal back again. Ionut
and Emma stayed with me the next night after a few beers and to Rhys stayed the
following night until Thursday for a work assignment… but it was perfect timing. He got the brother pleading for we can only presume
the charges to be dropped. He’s lucky I wasn’t there. Now for the trial… Let’s hope it’s an open and shut. Taking the stand is going to be an experience…
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