A Village Drama

Imagine this: you come home from school one day, hot and tired, ready to relax. Yet when the time comes to take your daily bafa (bucket bath), you realize something is afoot - the shampoo is gone! And so is the facewash!

Strange, you think to yourself. There is no legitimate reason yoh would have removed either of these items from the bafa, as the bafa is the only place around with a drain. Yet you find yourself looking around the house, hoping that for some reason your caffeine-deprived morning self took the toiletries inside the house.

No such luck. Your neighbor, the catechist, your night guard, and the friendly lady you employ to do chores, are all similarly baffled, except that they all agree "some boys" must have climbed over the wall around your backyard and taken these items.

You shrug it off, the bottles were mostly empty anyways, but the next day your closest neighbors (the catechist's oldest daughter and her family) experience a much greater theft: they lose a bicycle, 7000 kwacha, 2 bags of maize, and shoes. A minor catastrophe. You alert the PC safety and security officer, who reminds you, in the manner of Mad-Eye Moody, to remain vigilant. And always to bolt your doors. Done and done. You hope these theives, whoever they are, have realized that you only store boring soaps outside and will find other palaces to plunder.

Yet the next day, you stupidly  continue leave your toiletries in the bafa. And you return from school, again, to find a new bottle of facewash missing. Ugh. You text Mad-Eye an alert and go off to the trading center to pick up sweet potatoes and greens.

And then when you come back, your conditioner and soap are also gone.

This time, Mad-Eye gets a call. He advises you to go to the police in the morning. To report the thefts of toiletries. You find yourself hoping that the theives are at least using the products they took,and will be noticeable by their clear skin and clean-smelling hair.

But wait!!! A miracle occurs. As you eat dinner, you receive a phone call from the catechist - his grandchildren, your adorable neighbors, saw children climbing your wall today! So you send your guard off to form a posse with the catechist and his guard, who bring back your missing soaps! It's a miracle! (and apparently unrelated to the actual theft at your neighbor's house)

And so, exhausted by the day's work as well as the waves of emotions, you ready yourself for bed by 9pm, confident that by this time tomorrow, you will have clean hair.