My First ...

Oh my word. What a morning!! I just had my first personal brush with crime in Jozi ...

Okay, let me start by explaining my living situation. I live in a cottage on a large property. There are people in the main house and there are also people living in rooms between the cottage and the main house (our domestic worker and family of hers, I'm not always exactly sure of who lives there and who doesn't, aside from my domestic and her man). And a business is run from the main house during the day so there are always plenty of people around.

This morning I woke to a massive verbal fight happening in the rooms next to my cottage. A little later I heard the fight move into the large garden behind my cottage and I peeked out the window and saw my domestic's boyfriend and another man shoving and fighting. I went to go shower, staying out of it.

I got out of the shower to my phone ringing. It was the lady living in the main house telling me that my domestic's nephew had apparently opened my kitchen windows and taken stuff, could I please go and see if anything was missing. There was an already-opened bottle of vodka missing and that was all. The windows were wide open and I guess that was all within reach thru the burglar bars that he was interested in. Apparently this all happened at 05:45 this morning.

And so, the police & ADT were called. Apparently during the fight he'd also assaulted my domestic and her sister (his mom). I was impressed with how prompt they were. We made statements and when I left for work he was already locked in the back of their van.

Now it does seem kinda silly to me to lay a charge of theft against someone for something as ridiculous as an already-opened bottle of vodka, but I understand the principal. They wanted to press charges so I got behind them and did what was needed. They live there for free and he was screwing with the trust that exists between all of us living on the property.

I don't know what will happen now, but it was not an ideal start to my day.

At least the day has improve dramatically since I had my annual review just after arriving (I was obviously quite late after the morning's antics) and it went really well :)