My laptop has been stolen from the balcony of my house. Disaster indeed. I use it for everything – only 18 months old and cost me an arm and a leg.
Apple MacBook Pro 2015, 15″ screen…. I loved it a lot…. I mean I really loved it and took care of it. Whenever I was out of the house, I had it in a bag (Harris Tweed I’ll have you know), hidden under my jacket and strung around my chest so it was impossible to steal. I never let it out of my sight or my hands.
I got home on a boda boda motorbike and walked through the security gate, shouted at the guard dogs not jump up at me, walked around the back of the house, looked for the key in the hiding place… wasn’t there. So I went back to the front of the house, it was dark, I was tired and I rang my friend to see where she has hidden the key.
As she rang the maid to ask her, I sat down on the balcony, took off my laptop and placed it on the table. The call came thru – the location of the back door key. I walked around the back of the house, found the key, opened the back door and walked through the front door, unlocked it and when I looked at the place where I put my laptop bag, it was empty.
Obviously I thought I had made a mistake and put it somewhere different – I searched everywhere but it was nowhere to be found. When my friend returned we searched the garden in the dark for intruders and found nobody. It’s a week now and it still hasn’t turned up.
The gardener is the main suspect (actually the only suspect) – he was likely here, has money problems and has been found to take small things and lie to his employers.
The following day I asked him whether he could find my laptop and if he could, I would give him $100. This ploy didn’t work so after 18 hours I went to the police to report it. They came to interview the gardener and we took him to search his ‘house’ (squat) but nothing found there.
Nobody can use my computer except me – it’s locked, has a stolen message on it and when it’s eventually online I will be able to track it. It cost me £2,500 and I cannot afford another one so I am having to use my old Windows 7 computer.
I’m angry that I am ultra careful with my possessions when I am out and about but the thing was taken from my own house by the gardener. Why else did the dogs not make a fuss? Who else was in the garden, hiding in the bushes? Who else cold make it up to the table and then disappear into the bushes without the dogs barking?
Bad bad news but I find it impossible to moan too much when there is so much need in Uganda, so many refugees, so many sad stories of family members butchered in front of their eyes, so much poverty.
The whole police visit ended with him suggesting that the two of us become romantically involved. Welcome to Uganda!