Stolen Solar Panel – 30/8/08 – 5/9/08

That’s pretty much my news for the week: my solar panel was stolen. I came into town on Saturday and when I returned home it was gone. I guess I was somewhat tempting fate because I leave the thing outside, but my family is usually at home and I live I a quiet area of my village, so I figured it’d be ok. My family was really upset over the theft. I let them handle how to deal with it since I don’t understand the legal system here. Sunday morning my ntate went and talked with the chief, to tell her what had happened. The solar panel was stolen sometime between noon and 5:30, when I returned home. My m’e said that she suspected this boy who comes to the house sometimes because he is a friend of the family’s herd boy.
My chief scheduled a meeting with all of the boys who had been around the house that day. She scheduled it for Wednesday, though, which kind of baffled me. This gives the guy over 3 days to dispose of or hide the thing. So, of course the meeting produced nothing. And as far as I can tell it amounted to the boys being questioned:
“Did you take the solar panel?”
“No, madam.”
“Did you see the solar panel?”
“No, madam.”
Completely ineffective. Especially since the kids here are adept at lying. So I have little hope that it will be returned. I did notify my support group, though, and my ntate had let members of other communities know that it was taken. The solar panel is from America, so it’s pretty distinctively different from all of the solar panels you see here. So maybe someone will notice it and get a hold of us.
Just to round things out, I went to the police office in mohale’s hoek this morning to file a report. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to do anything. I sat there for an hour while a guy asked what happened and wrote really slowly a two-page report of what happened. Another guy questioned my as to my name, age, etc. general info. Basically. He asked my nationality. I said American. I noticed that he checked me as being Indian. “no,” I said, “I’m not Indian, I’m American. Check the box that says, “of other nationality.” there is an Indian option on the form because Indians make up probably the second largest minority in the country, behind Chinese. Meanwhile the guy writing the two-page report was occasionally questioning as to the proper spelling of certain words. He was also writing the report in first person, as if her were me: “I left my house Saturday morning. I left the solar panel outside…” hmmm. He finished writing the report and said they were through. I asked if he would like a description of the solar panel, especially since it’s unique looking. He said that no, if they found any solar panels they would take them and then bring me in to identify them. Yeah, I’m not getting my solar panel back.

Funny story from school: apparently some kids in my form a1 class decided to remove and hide the doorknob to the classroom door. One of the teachers finally found it and took the doorknob to the staffroom so the kids couldn’t hide again. Though the doorknob has been removed from the door, the latch is still functional. So if you close the door the latch slips in place, but there’s no knob to turn to release it. So now whenever I go to class I have to remove the doorknob from the staffroom, carry it to class, and insert it in the door so that I can actually get into the class. absolutely ridiculous. I love this country.