A Band of Fastidious Thieves

18 January 2012

So we were robbed.

Indeed. They came through the open kitchen window and were very selective. So selective that they spent time out on the patio organizing what to take and what to leave. They lined up my wallet, Michelle’s purse, my iPad keyboard, her waist pack, and even made a small stack of receipts from my wallet on the concrete edging of the raised garden bed outside. Possibly obsessive compulsive thieves.

They took all of our cash - about $700 Belize ($350 US), a phone, and a credit card. They left our passports, my keyboard, my dad’s prescription, and our purses behind.

Maybe the bag they brought with them to carry their spoils was very small.

Fitting for a strange robbery is the stranger twist that they called me later. The thieves. I was with my friend Fabio bemoaning my situation and borrowing his phone to cancel my credit card when my name appeared as an incoming call. Susana.

What can you do but answer when the thief himself calls? Maybe it was about a ransom. Leave 12 corn tortillas in a brown paper bag on the corner if you ever want to see your phone again.

It was not a ransom call after all, but a pocket-dial. The thief had somehow not only pocket-dialed, but pocket-dialed Fabio’s phone, which was (of all of the 25 numbers in my phone that could be pocket-dialed) the phone I, the thieved, was using to cancel the card the same thief had in his pocket, probably next to the pocket-dialed phone, getting demagnetized as we listened. What could possibly be stranger than this? (Besides the line up of non-stolen goods on the garden wall, of course.)

We heard them walking briskly, breathing heavily. Maybe they were going uphill or maybe they were portly. We don’t know. A lot of dogs were barking at first and they spoke in Spanish.

“Vamos,” I heard (Let’s go.) So there were several of them. We did not gain any further evidence from our eavesdropping or new insight into their thieving ways.

How could this fiasco happen?

It’s not that we weren’t home when we were burgled. It’s that we couldn’t be bothered. It was 8:30 p.m. I was in the shower. My dad was sleeping in his room. Michelle was upstairs. The dogs alerted us but it was such a short alert. Something *quieted* them. Maybe they knew the Thieves. (Just at lunch, my friend Sarah had said that Belizean criminals conduct all of their business in their backyards...meaning if someone robs you, look first to your neighbors. Nice.) Or maybe the thieves brought morsels for the dogs. Bribes. Eli would give up my purse in a minute for a shred of something chickeny. Even a cat food kibble would have swayed him to give up the phone.

We have five to six dogs here at all times. We have become accustomed to ignoring their ruckus. Since it was a short ruckus. I did not leap from the shower to see what was the matter. (Which was probably best for me in the end in any case.) I just rolled my eyes at the Barking. Then I came out of the shower and Michelle was on a hunt for her purse. Where had she put it? Oh, here it is, outside. On the garden wall.

“Susan, here’s your keyboard,” she said.

What? This was the Sign of Foul Play. It’s one thing to absentmindedly lay your purse aside as you open the door, but my keyboard has no place laid out in the elements by the garden. And thus we discerned that we had been robbed by a band of fastidious thieves. All of the rejected items that they did not steal lined up, rather evenly, in a row on the garden wall. (Recall the stack of receipts from inside my wallet set neatly beside.)

Michelle called the police. I left the scene of the crime.

This was last night. Today was a different story. The crime had sunk in. We felt Uneasy about the house and the brazenness of the act with all of us home - canines and people. My friend Tom, in the U.S., went to the bank for me and made sure my credit card was canceled and tried to get a new one issued. It had been my only access to Cash in Belize. And my phone numbers for friends in Belize are gone, until I run into them one by one on the street again… I was supposed to move this morning to a lovely house in the village of Kontiki, down the road, which has an acre of manicured lawn surrounded on all sides by Jungle. Should I move to so remote a house alone with two dogs when this is what happens with three people and five dogs afoot? I asked for another day to consider the house.

It is gated and the house is barred. The dogs can run free there. It’s another “little cabin in the south” for me (after my log cabin at the foot of the mountains in Asheville, N.C.). I likely still will take it, but it took awhile to come around from alarm and fear and loss (and anger) about the robbery to Gratitude. We did not get hurt. We did not walk unaware into a room with several banditos assessing the contents of our purses only to be shot or macheted or just scared face to face. The pups were not beaten or poisoned or harmed. We did not lose our passports. The thieves didn’t really inconvenience us that much. They just Took Our Money. And, as I think of that, if God should allow banditos run off with money He has provided for me, He will still make sure I have everything I need.

Gratitude changed my perspective, which freed me up to have the presence of mind to recognize Fear. I haven’t felt a speck of fear in Belize. I am not naive about Danger and the world-wide prevalence of ne’er-do-wells. I have 15 or so years of living in the inner city of Minneapolis informing me. But when someone puts your computer keyboard out in the garden, you start to wonder what other mad capers could happen. It would be easy to let fear take hold about a myriad of things. And fear begets fear, it is a spiral down. Wisdom is one thing, being smart about how you conduct yourself; but fear is what keeps you from living because something might Go Wrong. You have to be willing for some things to go wrong to have any contentment in life.

The only counter I know to fear is trusting God. With your circumstances and possessions and Belizean cash and pup dogs and sanity and your heart. It doesn’t mean someone won’t take it (or break it). It means it doesn’t matter if they do because God holds all of the cards, not me. And He promises that whatever happens - robberies or border crossings or flat tires on the ferry (you haven’t heard that story yet) or melanoma - good (very good) will come from it. For me. I rest in ways I could not otherwise rest if I did not believe that.

Now I’ve taken all of this time to tell you about the burgling and so many other stories lay in wait about our adventures and friends in Belize. But I’m weary tonight. My dad and Guthrie are snoring on the bed, the screaming kids on the playground toys next door have just gone in to their guest house, and I am thinking sweet thoughts of what lies ahead for me in Belize.

May the foolish thieves get help for their obsessive ordering of non-stolen goods during their escapades. And, actually...may all of their needs be met. May their families have enough to eat. And may the money they stole somehow be a greater blessing to others than it ever would have been, being spent from my wallet. As long as it’s gone, it may as well go for good...

Love and adoration and blessings to you from the tiny and culturally curious country of Belize,

Your Susanna