Quit your Friggin Job #4 - Thieves in the Night

Late Night Thieves on the Permaculture Farm

I hope ya'll excuse me for not quickly continuing with my walk through the cryptoverse along side the Permaculture principles. Some terrifying yet exciting happenings went down on the farm.

First off, I was very blessed to have my mother come from Canada to Guatemala to visit the land we are taking care of. I like to think of it as a bit of a cottage farm setup and I was excited to share the peaceful simple life with my lovely mother. 

This geography of volcanic mountain slopes are challenging for anybody and my mother handled them better than most with the assistance of a fine walking stick I stripped of bark and fashioned comfortably for her. 

The sad reality of such tranquil beauty is that there are some very hard working yet financially poor people living about the village. Sometimes the thought of thieving from better off gringos is too tempting to resist. 

The setting goes as follows: My mother, my wife and I had spent the day in the valley next to ours celebrating the 1 year anniversary of our friends fungi education and community centre called Fungi Academy. It was a fine evening filled with song and dance and cheese and mushrooms. The charm of the fungi people rubbed off on my mother and she was very pleased to see such a special group of friends. 

Now it seems like somebody near the farm is paying attention to when we leave the land for an extended period of time. I think the thieves saw us leaving during the day thought we would not return that night but we did in fact return after sun set. 

Side note: From pictures I've posted before you'll see some very fresh new born kittens. In fact, both two cats that live on the farm gave birth in the last 2 weeks (yes, I know we will get them fixed as soon as they are finished milking). We had been leaving our door open a crack while sleeping at night in order to give the mothers a chance to come in and out so they can hunt at night and still feed their babies. 

The thieves showed up with machetes and large rocks in the middle of the night. My wife and I were asleep under the mosquito net in the little wooden shack and my mother was sleeping in a small room attached to the garden shed down below. Imagine how surprised the thieves were to see the front door conveniently open for the cats. I believe they then put the rocks down where I found them the next morning on the front patio chairs and entered the outdoor kitchen. They then took two large kitchen knives and a broken egg flipper for some reason and quietly entered our room. From right off my bedside table they stole my iPhone and my wife's makeup bag (it looked like a purse). I woke up when I heard the door shut as they left and as I was in a midnight sleepy haze my wife told me she just dreamt that there were two men with knives in our room. 

By the time I went outside with machete in hand they were long gone and I figured the door shutting was just the cats or perhaps a curious mountain dog which we often hear going through our kitchen scrap bucket. 

It was not a dream ....

When I woke early in the morning to take a piss and feed the chickens, I noticed the rocks on the patio chairs then realized my iPhone was missing. They had taken the kitchen knives as well as a dead lighter and a neat little magnet adjustable flashlight my mom brought me. We found my wife's flashlight in the bush and an English guide book for Guatemala in the nearby bushes. The biggest loss though was our sense of innocence and peacefulness from the valley. I am terribly sad to say I now look at almost every young male I pass by with suspicion and as the sun sets we find it a bit nerve wracking when the surrounding forest and gardens make their usual nighttime noises. 

Despite all this we will carry on. We have new kittens to take care of and will not abandon the land to petty thieves so easily. I've taken to checking the outskirts of the land before sundown. I've also began dressing in black and hiding in the forest with a big stick and machete for a few hours at night ... and a wee kitten in the pocket to keep me company. Perhaps it sounds terrifying and stupidly dangerous but I feel it's an important kind of meditation and an exercise in mastering ones fears. What will I do if I happen to see some prowlers? Well, we shall see. Perhaps just watch what they do and see where they go. Maybe I'll even recognize who they are. There have been multiple thefts from the land in the past and we feel it's the same person every time ... and that they live nearby. 

Now, what would the sustainable solution be to all this be? Well, I feel these problems can be remedied by pair of good dogs who have for many generations been companions for the people of the land. The positive side of all this is that I now look at every street dog with compassion and politely ask them if they would like to come back to a good home with us. 

We've now finished up our memorable trip with mum and I'll be back soon to continue with 'Quit your Friggin Job' and our exploration of the cryptoverse through the Permaculture principles of sustainable design.