Saturday 16 March 2013

I am close to cracking, but not yet ready to give up.


A lack of recent posts, I know and I am always touched by how many regular readers contact me to find out if everything is OK.  I suppose with my previous, people do get nervous.

I’d like to say that my absence was purely down to one hap-happy experience after another, a series of delightful happenings distracting me from blogging and restoring my faith in human nature but that would be SO unlike me, wouldn’t it?

A few weeks ago the shop and house site was broken into.  Loads of power tools, all my plumbing fittings and the TV/DVD combo were stolen.  I had mixed feelings about the loss of the entertainment, after all I pay the guys to work, not watch movies but I was pretty incandescent about the tools and fittings.  These are hard to come by here and eye-wateringly expensive.  To import replacements would take ages and I think that, one way or another, I have suffered enough delays.

Coming so soon after my community court appearance during which I had been reminded to leave things in the hands of the community elders and they would look after us I was pretty pissed off. 

Marcia is pretty good at sniffing a trail so it wasn’t long before she picked up a rumour as to who might be responsible.  The guy was one of the more respected members of the community.  He had been among those condemning me, assuring me that the community was honest and all the thefts I had suffered in the past had been committed by outsiders.  So instead of going to the community elders and the corrupt sheriff, Marcia went to the police.  Not the local police, who would have done nothing, but Criminal Investigation in town.

They came and arrested him.  Less than 24 hours later he confessed and told them where he had hidden the stuff.

 
We had just finished supper when all hell broke loose.  A mob had gathered and rocks were being thrown onto the roofs of the buildings.  They told us they were going to burn us out, set fire to the thatch of the jango and smash my trucks.  Amongst the crowd I spotted the corrupt sheriff’s brother.

The British Army has a lot of experience in riot control and when they deploy on the streets, they have a system.  Basically they put up a wall of makrolon shields across the road.  Behind that are two soldiers armed with baton guns.  These fire a rubber cylinder about the size of two AA batteries end to end.  Technically, they were supposed to fire them into the ground in front of the rioters so that some of the kinetic energy was dissipated and the round would tumble end over end into the crowd.  What actually happened was that the Incident Commander would identify the ring leaders to the guys with the baton guns and, on command, the shields would part in two places allowing them to plant a baton round straight into the target’s chest.   Targets fall when hit.  The noise of the baton guns going off would cause the crowd to retreat slightly so as soon as the guns went off, two teams of two men each, dressed lightly with only batons (the manual kind you swing rather than fire) would run out from either side of the shield wall, grab the gasping miscreant and drag him back behind the wall and hand him over to the arresting team.  Me and another guy called Jenkins formed one of these snatch teams and we were very good.  I can say that with all confidence as sometimes it didn’t go according to plan and the snatch squads were grabbed and beaten shitless, or worse.  We were never grabbed and always brought our game in so we must have been good.

Sadly, I did not have a baton gun or a snatch squad to hand, much less a makrolon shield to hide behind so could not do to the sheriff’s brother what I really wanted.

Why all this fuss?  Apparently they had heard that the thief had died in police custody.  Whilst I had no sympathy for him, indeed I hoped his demise had been both miserable and painful, I could appreciate that this could be awkward for us.  Marcia told me to stay calm and keep an eye on Alex.  She told me she had left her phone on my desk and I was to keep ringing the last dialed number which was for the Inspector dealing with the case.  In the meantime she let the mob take her and my truck so they could head to town.

I got through to the inspector.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘we’ll stop them at the next town’

To cut a long, and for us at least, very exciting story, the guy had not died.  Someone had started this rumour and whipped up a crowd and both Marcia and I knew who.  As the police hauled everyone off the truck and waved about charges of kidnapping, threats of violence and criminal damage, the police became ever more incensed at the thought that they were being accused of killing someone in their custody.

When Marcia got back home, safe and sound, I was quite angry.  We have to live here so it doesn’t do to upset the natives.  We agreed we’d go the community route so why hand the thief over to the police?  Of course I have been scared in the past.  I was scared when I was defusing bombs.  I was scared when being shot at.  Thinking back on my extraordinary life I seem to have been scared more times than not but I was never so scared when I watched my truck drive off with my Marcia in it and there was fuck all I could do about it except press redial on a bloody mobile phone.

The next day a delegation of high ranking criminal investigators visited us. 

‘We have had plenty of complaints from the Barra de Kwanza’, one of them said, ‘but they have all been anonymous, nothing for us to go on.  Even our boss’s generator was stolen last year’

‘I know,’ I said, ‘they stole mine at the same time.  You’re not telling me these bastards don’t know what is going on?’

So I told them everything I knew.  I told them about Manuel and Bota.  I told them how they sold land two and three times over.  I asked them to consider how it was possible that they were driving around in brand new Landcruisers while the population didn’t even have drinking water.  I asked them to check out the local school and count the non-existent desks and chairs.  I asked them to try and find the medical post.  I asked them to try and work out how, if the government had paid for ten metre long fishing boats with forty horsepower outboards for the fishing community of the Barra de Kwanza, the only person to have one was the corrupt sheriff while everyone else had to make do with four meter skiffs and ten horsepower motors.  I asked them to explain why, if anyone upset the corrupt sheriff he would arrange to have them beaten up (yes, Fifth Columnist, I know I am riding for that hiding).  I told them to check how much the local council had received to invest in the village and then to try and find evidence on the ground.

They asked me if I had any cold beers.

28 comments:

  1. Ye gods Mr H, if never rains but it [insert something else rude and meteorological] down.

    Reading your blog does little for my vicariously-based sense of security.

    Are you holed up with plenty of fire-power and a helicopter on tick-over?

    Other than these few, I am lost for words - it's all beyond my ken.

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    1. [insert something else rude and meteorological]

      Pours shit?

      Oh yes, I am holed up with plenty of firepower. Two sabres (one of them ceremonial so blunt as my dick), two dogs (both useless when it comes to a scrap) and a 7,65mm CZ in the bottom drawer of my desk.

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  2. Are you absolutely certain that you're not Biggles' wayward younger brother after he tried to settle down?

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    1. I have a first edition copy of 'Biggles learns to fly'. This was set in the First World War when the RAF was still called the Royal Flying Corps. There is always the chance I could be Biggles' lost and wayward grandson but only DNA testing could confirm that, Sir Owl.

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  3. Crikey. It makes life in my neck of the woods pretty tame.

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    Replies
    1. Where you live sounds nice. Can I move in with you? Like soon?

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  4. Miles Standish' diary goes on for pages about an Indian encounter. He tried to communicate with them, used his watch to show them the diverse ways of the sun, the moon, the stars, as his little band stood about. "All of the above notwithstanding" the Indians took the goods and tied them to a tree.

    It's tough to be a stranger in a strange land.

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    Replies
    1. And yeah, though I told them so many times the pedal in the middle was the brake, they still hung the truck in the tree...

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  5. What a scary world you live in! My stress level was shooting way up as I read about your plight. It's sad that corruption is always the status quo in third world countries and the only way you can change it is through dictatorship. And then, you just have a different kind of corruption!

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    1. With such a perceptive comment, you deserve far more than a flippant answer. I am just way too drunk to think of one right now but if I managed one, strong, honest leadership would be right up there. I wanted to say 'would figure prominentally' but I wasn't sure I could spell 'prominantly', 'promenently' (bloody Portuguese spell check)

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    2. "prominently".

      I am too weak today to right anything else, as I seem to have caught a bug, but, like Patton "I shall return".

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    3. Columnist, like Patton? What, with pearl handled revolvers welded to your hips and a chrome plated bone dome? I can't see it somehow!

      Get well soon.

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    4. In trying to give you the correct spelling for prominently, I should at least have provided the correct one for "write". But alas, I was unwell. Today I'm almost 100%, allowing me to now re-read and write a comment on your blog, hereunder.

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  6. Your blog never fails to amaze me! I dont think I could put up with all the coruption, we moan over here about what goes on in government but it's nothing compared to what you have to put up with! I'm glad you didn't have to resort to a baton to defuse the riot, Mind you I bet they would have gone if you'd have picked up an ashtray!
    I'm glad you've got your tools back. I've a friend who lives in The Gambia and he moans about how hard it is to import things. If you want I could try and post you a freshly grafted english apple tree and see if it would get through customs!

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    1. I am still working out how to get you apple cuttings from Angola, Big Don Alviti. I rather fancy willow from you to put around my pond so that in years to come we can hand craft cricket bats and civilise the natives. As Marcia has confiscated my ashtrays, cricket bats are a good substitute.

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  7. Wow. Just as we were all starting to wonder what had happened to you, up you come with another top yarn. And Marcia again shows you how lucky you are to have her, but I'm sure you already know that. I hope you get all your stuff back soon and the locals come back on board.
    Have you seen that Inspector Gadget has closed his site. A very sad day indeed. I feel bereft.
    How are your plans for visiting Blighty coming along?

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    1. I noted that Gadget has dropped off the radar but I also noted that he was very selective about the comments he approved and often tried to defend the indefensible. This diluted his argument. In addition, if he was pre qualifying comments made on his site, why did he allow the puerile competition to be the first to post a comment to continue?

      I do not know about you but it did leave me with the impression that police officers have far too much time on their hands and have forgotten the meaning of public service and the unacknowledged sacrifice it entails.

      As we used to say in the Army, if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined.

      Inspector Gadget was witty, but I do not think he did his hard working and long suffering colleagues any favours.

      As soon as I get this place open I will head back to Europe, first to Germany to get kitted out and then to UK, sink a few pints of decent heavy and then do my porridge.

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  8. The more you write about your life , the more I appreciate mine Hippo. I'm afraid it sounds a very wild and unlawful place to live but I guess there must be a reason you have chosen to live there. You sound like you like to live on the edge - a bit of a modern day pioneer -but my advice would be to take your calm and very brave wife and dear little boy and emigrate to somewhere where life is a little safer and more predictable. I guess you'd be bored silly in no time ??!!

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    1. I was thinking of the Caribbean. Property is cheap in Haiti I understand.

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  9. Shropshire is sounding even more like a good option. I'd have been out of there years ago!

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    1. Cro, if only I could but what would I do? Besides, the only reason I am here is to stay close to Dominic. I can't take him with me.

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  10. All the villagers needed were pitchforks and lighted torches...
    It's all very Frankenstein is it not.....!.
    I think I will remain closeted and safe in boring old Trelawnyd x

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    1. They had machetes and Chinese knock off's of Bic Lighters and a can of petrol.

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  11. Tom, maybe you need one of these bats.

    http://www.blasterstool.com/nebo5904protecbat-light.aspx

    Blind and Wack version.

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    1. although, stop the press. Not the tool against machetes, unless when blinded and hearing your blood curdling roar, they start swinging wildly among themselves.

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  12. I note that you have no option but to live in Angola, to be with your son. So any other talk is pointless. I am glad you are going to get yerself sorted in Blighty, and maybe that will enable life to run a bit more smoothly, although it does sound very unlikely given the set up. And anyway, you probably enjoy the drama. Personally I prefer a more sedate approach to life, without the need to be sedated to achieve it.

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  13. After reading yet another harrowing experience in your life, i'm even more grateful for my dull one.

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  14. Good Lord. What a world to live in. All just too surreal for words really. And in a land of such beauty how does ugliness survive? Hope you survive....

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Please feel free to comment, good or bad. I will allow anything that isn't truly offensive to any other commentator. Me? You can slag me without mercy but try and be witty while you are about it.