Betrayal

Someone has been stealing from me.  The house has not been broken into, so it is someone that I have trusted.  I don't know who it is, and I have hesitated to write about this lest I cast suspicion on someone who is not the thief.  So, I will clarify that there are a lot of possibilities, and I am not going to add any more details.  I have been doing a lot of work to figure out how it is happening, and I can't figure anything out, so I am left with a vague feeling of distrusting everyone.

Someone is stealing money.  A lot of money.  This is a cash-only society, and the nearest ATM is still a long way away, so I get out a bunch of cash about once a week, although I sometimes go more often and store it when I know a certain expense is coming up.  It has happened several times, and the first couple incidents I wasn't sure if it was my own mis-remembering, but then a couple more incidents have involved a very large amount of money.  Very large even by American standards, let along Ugandan ones.  I thought I had figured out what was going on and accounted for it, but then it just happened again.

As I said, I'm not going to go into any more details about what is happening, but I am going to try and talk about how I personally have been doing.  I feel like I need to write about this, because it has colored so much of my feelings and actions over the last few weeks.  A little while ago, I wrote about how owning the strengths of my personality helped me get through the rough times, but part of exploring ourselves is also owning the dark sides.  I admit that a tragedy like this has brought out my dark sides.

(And for the word "tragedy," I don't think that simply having money taken is a tragedy; we can still eat at the end of the day.  But I do think that having my trust shaken in just about everyone around me, in a country which I am trying to adapt to and at a time when I am already struggling to focus on the positive, is not an exaggeration of "tragedy".)

I'm going to talk about this in terms of my Enneagram type, because that's what I've been thinking about lately, but not to imply that other types would not mind being robbed!

I think part of the problem is that we 9's are unsuspicious.  Someone else might have been paranoid about money from the beginning, and other more worried personalities would probably have figured it out earlier than I did.  I know I'm bad a worrying about logical things, so at home I make rules for myself like "always lock the car door when I get out," even if I'm in the middle of an empty field and not going out of sight of the car.  I'm afraid that if I start to decide that I don't need to lock the car, I'll decide that too often. And 9's like to float through life, and we tend to be detail-oriented about things we care about and let go of details we don't care about, so I kept my money out of sight but didn't make a big deal about securing it or keeping track of exactly how much there was.

9's seek internal and external peace, and we tend to want to find that at least partially by creating a peaceful oasis in our home.  In this chaotic and extroverted African society, my own calm home has been a vital element of maintaining my sanity.  To have the sanctity of my home violated is a really big deal.  Just a really really big deal.

And I've probably dealt with it in the negative 9 way.  I've started getting worried, and going around and around the same thoughts helplessly.  So to escape that cycle, I just bury myself in something else, anything else... except it's pretty much bound to be something unproductive!  It's already been hard for me to be productive around here, with all the practical limitations on me, so with some internal blocks as well I really do make it all the way over to "lazy."  But I just don't have enough energy to get up and do anything else!  My house is an absolute mess right now, for several different reasons (which include but are not actually limited to three small being who inhabit it), and I have just let it be messy around me all day long -- actually, it's probably been several days now.  I know that the messy house is making things worse, but that is somehow not helping me actually do anything about it.

And I also don't have any energy left to to deal with the kids with their internal and external kid-chaos getting home at the end of the day.  I find myself getting frustrated way too quickly when Buttercup pees herself and doesn't tell me, or Emerson starts screaming possessively about his precious stuff, and Hibiscus -- oh my goodness, Hibiscus is just a giant bundle of chaos.  Swinging heavy objects violently and randomly, strange precarious acts on stairs, putting bizarre and delicate objects on her head, and everything at high speed and high volume.  Ideally, my peaceful 9-ness would help balance her out, and she would naturally gravitate a little more towards the middle.  Instead, it has been feeling like she just shatters through whatever was left of my internal peace, leaving behind great gaping holes of non-mother-li-ness.

Why don't I have any energy left?

We read a new little book the other night, about a girl who is excused from doing all the family chores but no one does work for her, either.  I had a strong suspicion from just the first page that it would contain a useful moral for my children!  (We have a Little Miss "Dat not my mess, I no for clean dat one!" at family chore time.)  But not only did the girl in the book decide that it was no fun to have to do all her own jobs, and it makes a family to do chores together, but she also got bored with nothing to do.  Her mother told her that "doing nothing makes you feel like doing nothing."  That could be part of my problem.

But it feels like it's more than that.  This morning, I didn't clean the house, but I did count money and decide where to put my lockbox and my keys and so on and so forth.  I really think that felt like several hours of hard labor, except I didn't have anything to show for it at the end.  On the days when I spent time with my parents, or even our American visitor "Mr Slinky," I didn't feel this leaden exhaustion at night; even on the long days I went to bed more calm instead of drained.  If having conversation and friendly human interaction is in some way fulfilling and energizing, it's just absolutely the opposite to have to look at the people around me and feel defensive and boxed in.  I don't have "best friends" here, but I have people around me with whom I have pleasant interactions and smiles; now everyone in my compound is a potential sneak and thief.

I don't have natural internal walls.  I don't dislike people; I don't distrust people.  Unlike many other types, 9's don't define themselves as strongly by the company they keep; they keep all sorts of company, and see the value in all sorts of people.

But I am one step past being able to forgive, forget, and move on.  I did that once, and then I got robbed again.  (And possibly one more time, although I'm hoping that was just an accounting error... although how I could possibly miscount my money is a little beyond me at this point; la la la la la.....)  Or maybe I'm one step before being able to forgive, forget and move on... I need to be out of here.  The vague feelings of un-safety that have been hovering at the edges of my mental vision have come swooping into center ground: I am not safe.  Someone I thought I knew has been betraying me, repeatedly.  Stealing money is far from the worst thing that could happen to me, I know very well.  But if someone can do that, what else bad could happen?  All the warnings I have gotten from so many directions -- other travelers, locals, friends, random people on the street, ex-pats living here, gossips and worrywarts -- suddenly loom large and real.

Very large.  I am a woman alone in a faraway country where I don't know the language, the customs; where I am spectacularly conspicuous.  I constantly have children with me who are not biologically my own, in a culture which doesn't understand adoption but is full of stories about stealing children for witchcraft.  Ugh.  I just can't write any more about it.

And I don't even have my dogs.  Beloved and territory-defending dogs are a good talisman against feeling afraid in your home!  Or, lacking that, an off-kiilter 9 can curl up with them at night, and feel their silky ears and hear their soft sighs of sleepy contentment, and feel a little bit of centered-ness returning to her.  Those happy-dog sighs!  I forgot how rejuvinating it was to feel like I am making another being so happy.  Even when I'm a terrible mother, my dogs are quick to forgive any sin for a nice good cuddle.

So, that is my emotional story of the last couple of weeks.  I can see the problem, but I don't see a solution that can restore my lost sense of safety.  I can see my own weakness, but I can't figure out the way back on to the road to strength.