It seems like a long time since I last posted anything in this blog. Just one of those “life gets by you” things. Since I last posted, we returned from Bali and started school and work and got back to daily life here in Sumbawa. There just seems to be no time to do anything personal when school is in session as we go flat out most of the time.
The term “paradise” gets thrown around a lot by expats living in tropical locations, and this includes, of course, Indonesia. I’ve used the term myself a number of times both in my websites and this blog. I’ve also written several magazine articles using the same term, although I always use it in a tongue-in-cheek manner. A close friend of mine who doesn’t always get what parts of my writing are tongue-in-cheek and which parts are not, once suggested that I write something about what life is “really” like over here. This would include power shortages, water shortages, poisonous insects and snakes, earthquakes and such. Another topic he specifically mentioned was the home invasions that have taken place here in the last year.
There actually haven’t been that many, but the ones that have happened (about 8 in the last two years according to my count) have been scary and have on several instances involved violence done to the occupants of the homes that were entered by the bad guys. One of the joys of living here in my small part of Sumbawa is the small nature of the community and its somewhat remote location. The bad side of this is that we have no police force here, and thus are basically unprotected.
So a week ago, someone began knocking at the gate at close to 2 am. The dogs started barking (well, May, the small one did; Apple, our big German Sheperd, just jumped around wagging his tail). We didn’t leave the house, turned off the lights, and then waited for the person at the gate to go away. Turns out that the next morning our neighbors tell us that there were three people (two hiding behind the wall with their car parked down the road), and they tried to gain access to two other houses in the neighborhood. This approach (by the bad guys) has been the m.o. in all of the home invasions in this area. A bad guy or girl asks for help, the homeowner opens the door, gate, etc, and a group rush in armed with machetes and steal everything they can get. A few folks have been badly beaten for offering resistance. Thus, no one here opens up the doors to strangers anymore.
Yesterday, Apple died of poisoning. The family was heartbroken as they had taken Apple to be a member of the family after being with us from puppyhood to adulthood. We suspect that he was poisoned as he’s not in the habit of eating bugs, snakes, and the poisonous frogs around the house. Our leading theory is that the bad guys came back (someone was knocking on the gate again the night before Apple died) and poisoned Apple as he would take food from anyone. It’s lonely here without Apple, the kids (who were terrified and repulsed by having a dog when we first bought him) talk about him like he’s still here, my wife who used to wear plastic gloves when she touched him has been morose since Apple died yesterday. Well, here’s the other side of paradise.
RIP Apple, you were a friend to all of us.
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