Family News

So I was up three times during the night telling the outside dogs to keep quiet...one is in heat and many of her boyfriends are outside, and the other two dogs, being jealous, have been barking a lot. Or maybe it's because it is Friday night, and the Resto-bar across the street has a lot of people coming and going.

Then, at 3 am, we heard a loud noise at the gate. I thought they had opened the gates to take out the truck to do a delivery, but I didn't hear the engine, so went back to sleep. Then at 4 am the cops arrived at the door, and when I checked the door noticed our large truck was halfway through the door (but the door stopped it). The neighbor noticed the semi destroyed door and called them.

We checked, and no sign of anything stolen. And the cops noted the smoke we smelled came from the battery, so he disconnected it and while doing so the starter went on for a second and the truck went forward an inch.

Inside, the keys were there and "on", and no parking break, and the clutch was in first gear. Probably "carelessness".

The cops checked the entire compound and noted that anyone could go over our walls (which we know). Up to two years ago, we had a man sleep in a small room that faced our back garden for safety, but we have no one now... the cops said if we heard anything, we should call them...won't work for me since I don't have a cellphone, and Joy barricades the door for safety, since we both figure let them steal everything but let us alone (several people have been killed in robberies in our town, mainly from trying to fight them off).

I usually am the one downstairs to answer the door at night, with only George the killer dog for protection. Presumably I should get a gun, but I'd be too klutzy to use it. I gave my mom a shotgun for protection, so maybe I should buy one. Lolo always had a pistol and his old WWII automatic rifle, but when he had a stroke, we gave them to relatives and kept a man with a machete to guard us.


Later Chano said the "starter" was not working right yesterday but they didn't have a chance to fix it.

But we still don't know if someone tried to steal it but couldn't unlock the door, and the door was too strong to crash through, or if someone just carelessly left the truck in first gear and the key on, so when the rain/moisture dripped and caused the battery to short, the starter kicked on and it simply went forward by itself. Probably the latter.

So more expenses to fix the truck at a time we need the large truck to haul large objects to the farm.

Oh yes: A lifesaving hint my mom taught me when we stalled out driving through a ford in Africa and got water in the engine: If you "start" the car when you are in first gear, it lunges forward. It took four lunges for us to get through the water one time. And in Africa, when the water was above the floorboards, you simply opened the door and let the river run through so it wouldn't float you away.

But if the water is over 18 inches, unless you are in a deep ambulance/truck, you are better off not doing this. So when Sister Patricia started convulsing from cerebral malaria, they detoured fifty miles on dirt roads upstream to ford the river in our ambulance that had high clearance to get her out.