Ibisambo

“Ibisambo, ibisambo.” Sadi kept saying it over and over as if repetition would make me understand. He doesn’t speak English, I don’t speak Kinyarwanda, so we had an impasse going. Without understanding what had happened, I went back inside the house.

I had awoken 2:45 a.m. to bloodcurdling screaming on the street in front of the next door neighbor's house. You have to understand that we can't see out to the street because the house is surrounded by a tall brick wall. The screaming didn't stop, so I hauled myself out of bed, getting tangled up in my mosquito net and almost landing on my hind end. I went outside to find our guard, Sadi, gone. So I walked up the driveway in my nightshirt and the pants I had hastily pulled on and saw a group of people in the street in front of the neighbor's house. I didn't try to intervene because the situation seemed to be slowing down, and without any Kinyarwanda I wouldn't have known what was going on anyway. Etienne, an assistant at the children’s home who serves as our interpreter, has a room on the grounds of our house in a separate building, but he slept through the whole episode. He's 21, and sleeps through everything like only young guys can.

Micaela and I waited on the back porch for a while, deciding on the best thing to do. I went around to the side of the house again, and Sadi was back. He kept saying, "It's ok, it's ok, ibisambo, ibisambo," so I went back inside, somewhat, but not completely reassured. “It’s ok”sounded reassuring, but I knew that ibisambo was the key to understanding what had happened.

Wide awake by this time, Micaela and I made a snack of cheese and crackers and watched the rest of Sister Act, which we had started on Saturday night. Eventually we went back to bed, still not knowing what had happened. I never went back to sleep.

At breakfast with the boys, still no information was available, but we learned that after John took some of the kids to kindergarten, he would find out and tell us. Later, he came to the house and explained that a guy had tried to break in to the house next door to steal some animal skins that the neighbor uses to make drums and other traditional items. Apparently, the guard at that house heard him and grabbed him by the throat. Then Sadi and the guard at our girls' house (across the street) and several others ran to assist. It seems that they apprehended the guy and delivered him to the police. It turns out he sleeps in a bush down the street and has robbed other homes. He had a stash of stolen property that the police allowed the owners to reclaim. The guard at the girls' house is now regarded as a hero by the neighbors. I think Sadi is a hero too, and I told him this. Ibisambo means thief.