Tiba: happy endings

As I make the final preparations to leave, a car drives up. It is fairly early in the morning and most people are not up yet. I walk over to the gentleman who exited the car and greet him. He asks for the owners of the homestead. I take him to the main house and leave to allow their conversation. As I pack up my car, several gentlemen enter the home where I am staying. They are carrying something… something familiar.

One of the men unzip the red carrying case and ask if the contents are mine. It is my laptop. I am totally stunned. I reluctantly reach to touch it, afraid that physical contact my make it disappear once again. I open it and start it up to see if my contents are there. I immediately go to the file where I store all the documents for my research project. Everything is there. I check again, afraid to believe what I see. I can’t believe it.

Apparently what had happened is that the perpetrator had put the laptop and a variety of other stolen goods in an empty house on the homestead. It is likely that his fear about being caught with stolen goods was greater than his use for my laptop. There was nobody he could sell it to in his community, and he likely didn’t have the connections to sell it in town. Besides, it was more than likely that members of the community would find it at some point or another. I guess vigilantism still works in some parts of the world, and that makes me smile.

Stunned, exhausted and delighted I finish packing my car and head back home to Cape Town, re-enacting the events of the last few days.