I would normally do some self-censoring here, mainly because of my mom, who tends to worry. But this blog has been inactive for so long that I am fairly certain she is no longer checking up on it. I am, by the way, 41-years-old.

On the night of September 1st, a thief, or more likely, thieves, stole two motorbikes from our house. This is the same house (not the new Sleeping Camel) where we have been living as a family since April 2023. We have never had an issue here and I suppose we just got too relaxed. I locked the steering wheels of the bikes each night, but I never bothered with a chain or an alarm. We live on the property with our Senegalese landlord and her family, and they were all quite relaxed as well. Bakary, the guardian, who is around during the day but goes home at night, always told me that they didn’t have a problem with theft in this particular quartier.

Now, it’s true that the jakartas are a frequent target for theft. It doesn’t take much to change the housing and the ignition, and they can easily be flipped if you take them to another town.

Thieves in this part of Senegal are opportunistic and they are usually looking for low-hanging fruit. They are generally not violent and they will avoid a confrontation. A motion sensor light would have probably been enough to deter them.

But we didn’t have that. And I didn’t chain the bikes. And on the morning of September 2nd, I learned that it was possible to reach underneath the big steel doors to open them even when everything else was locked.

I opened the front door of our house that morning and immediately saw the blue tarp that normally covers the bikes thrown near the bushes. No bikes. A single handlebar cover was laying in the sand just after the concrete. It was very dreamlike for a few seconds. Then my mind was racing for answers, some explanation for how the bikes could be gone but still in our possession. This was immediately followed by shock, anger, self-loathing, and quite nearly a panic attack.

The timing was unfortunate. September 2nd is Liza’s birthday. I had just returned from a trip to Bamako, and it was a big lift paying for rent, school tuition for both kids, school supplies (holy crap they were expensive), and of course, the birthday gifts and associated festivities. Now we were down two motorbikes just before our scoot season gets off the ground.

I was the only one awake at this point so I had some time to steady myself. If we had made the discovery together as a family, I may have had a Chevy Chase style Meltdown.

But I got it together. When everyone came down I told them the news. This thing happened. It’s done. We are all safe and healthy. It’s Liza’s Birthday. We are going to have a great day.

And we did have a great day.

As for the bikes, I filed a report with the gendarmes and reached out to all the mechanics I know in the area. But they are long gone. As they say here, and everywhere else in Francophone West Africa, ca va aller. It’s going to be OK.