I was robbed!

December is starting off with a bang. Someone broke into my house last night. Don't worry, everything is fine...physically. They did steal my cell phone from the states and my cell phone for the DR, my IPod touch, and some cash. But it was a small price to pay to learn a small Dominican living lesson.

For those of you that have not been to someplace in Latin America, here is a brief description of what houses are like. Houses are made out of concrete and re-bar and therefore are very sturdy. In all the window frames are metal grates (bars) for security so that no one unwanted can enter your house. Also there are glass windows to keep the weather out, and in my case screens outside of the bars. Where most houses in the states have a screen door there is another iron gate that is locked with a sturdy padlock, and then of course there is your front door.

Here's what I assume happened. When I went to bed last night both the gate and the door were locked, the windows were open letting the cool breeze in, and (unfortunately) my keys were sitting on a chair under a window. Someone saw something they wanted and sliced the screen open in the window above my bed, but couldn't reach the desired items on my bedside table. They went to the front window to see if they could open the door from there and low and behold they could reach my keys. They then opened the door nice and quite like, sneaked into my bedroom and took these few things as their own. I woke up sometime after when the wind (or the thief) slammed the door shut to find my stuff missing and my keys on the ground just outside the front door. Needless to say, I'm a bit disturbed!!!

Lesson learned! My keys are now safely somewhere out of sight and well away from any opening. Thank the Lord that they didn't take anything more important, after all the keys to my truck were on the same key chain.