Sometimes, Being Robbed Has Its Upsides

In my last post, I mentioned the unfortunate robbery at my little house. In a somewhat amusing turn of events, I have recovered my computer. I returned to the police station to pick up my declaration in order to submit my insurance claim, only to find my computer sitting behind the commissioner's desk. I was amazed, mahagaga even, as the competency of the authorities was previously questioned by all. Nice work team. The amusing part of this story goes like this. Pre-robbery, the computer was suffering from some old-age health issues. The backlighting worked only some of the time, so more often than not I had to sit with my back to a window in order to see what I was doing. It turns out the thieves reconfigured the computer, fixed the backlighting, and installed updated versions of everything. So among other things, I now have Office 2007 as opposed to 2003. It works better than it ever has before. Love it. Now I'm just waiting for my stolen tin bowls to be transformed into fine china.

Mom has been in town for over a week already. We've been staying in the Dadamanga Bungalow on the beach - a bizarre little oasis of luxury that includes daily hot showers. Okay, maybe I'm just extremely easy to please. We also went on a two day bush excursion and entered the wonderful world of tents, long drop toilets, and rice and beans. Even though it was the first time in a tent for mom in 25 years and likely the last for the next 25 years, we both thoroughly enjoyed the croc hunt in a pirogue, the forest walk, and the drive through the countryside. We are now sitting in our cozy little bungalow waiting for the rainy day to pass so we can get out to the lemur reserve.