Theft in Rwanda

Theft in Rwanda is almost never by force. Nor is it usually through cons or tricks. It is most often through opportunism and stealth. Leave something of, even insignificant, value in a place that is reachable without anyone noticing, and it will likely be gone. At first I thought it was silly how obsessive my host family was with their locks. At night, every cabinet holding silverware, leftover foods, plates and a sugar bowl were closed and locked. One volunteer’s family even insisted that they lock her bedroom door (from the outside) at night. It seemed so silly because Rwanda is one of the least intimidating places I know of, and I can’t imagine people breaking into houses. However, it happens on a regular basis on the village level. People sneak around at night, looking for unlocked kitchens and easy to hop gates. Any objects, including charcoal or unattended pots of food over a fire, are prone to disappearing if not behind a locked door. People are so paranoid of theft in the villages, that when they move houses, they do it in the middle of the night, for fear of opportunistic thieves, and displaying their possessions, which could attract thieves at later times.

Pick pocketing, which seems to disproportionately target foreigners in urban areas, seems to be on the rise. Most incidents occur at crowded bars, but myself and several other volunteers have been targeted on the street. While it seems to be pretty common, I get the impression that Rwandans are still mastering this art, as I have see many failed attempts at getting into my pockets.

The most surprising thing about theft here, though, is not the frequent village thefts and break-ins or the lackluster attempts at pick-pocketing. To me, what is shocking is how tame the aftermath of a theft is. Africa is famous for its “street justice”. Somebody caught stealing is liable to get chased through the streets and beaten, or sometimes even killed. Now, in principle, I don’t condone vigilantism. However, I have found it comforting, and even useful, in the past to know that I could muster a mob or at least a little help just by shouting “thief!” I am convinced that screaming “Help! thief!” helped keep me safe when men on a motorbike were chasing me on a dark street in Ghana. When somebody tries to rob you on the street in Rwanda, nobody else really cares that much; at least not enough to chase them down and beat them. Not that I condone that.

I don’t know if there is a lot of theft in Rwanda. It would seem on the surface that there is. I have seen and heard of a lot more here than any other country I’ve been in. Then again, I’ve been in Rwanda a lot longer and hear a lot more than I did in the other countries I’ve been to. However, I have never heard of any thief turning to violence. And I guess that’s a good thing.

***

We arrived in Gisenyi at dusk, just in time to hear the call to prayer slinking out of the large mosque nearby. Luke, Caitlan and I descended from the bus in the town center where it was moderately crowded with pedestrians. Caitlan was slightly behind Luke and I as we walked in the direction of the bank. Suddenly Caitlain said my name, and that somebody was reaching into my backpack. By the time I turned around the teenage boy was halfway across the street. I remember casually dropping the word thief in English and French, seeing if any of the other pedestrians would care. I watched the boy as he mixed into the crowd and slipped behind a building.

A month later I was walking with Harley in the same town, at the same time of day, on the other side of the street in the opposite direction. Mid-conversation, Harley starts yelling, “Hey. Hey! HEY!” I stopped and turned in time to see the thief running across the street. Harley, who had served in the Peace Corps in Cameroon and was very used to street justice for thieves, was yelling “thief” in French. Again, nobody seemed interested in stopping the guy who had nearly gotten away with Harley’s wallet. A man nearby came up to Harley and asked if he was ok. I guess this was not what Harley was expecting to get by yelling “thief”.

***

Some of my fellow PCVs get robbed on a regular basis at certain bars. One of our favorite dives in one of the lake towns got pretty bad after us gringos started going there more often. Pick pockets generally take advantage of the crowded dance floor, the drunkenness of the victims and the dark. The first time I caught a man with his hand going into my pocket, I yelled at him and called him a thief. He simply pretended he didn’t hear me. It was the same defense that some of my students use when they’re in trouble. Avoid eye contact and ignore. I still don’t know how to deal with that.

The second time somebody tried to pick my pocket at that bar I didn’t notice at first. As happens in Rwanda, I was dancing with a guy. He had started dancing pretty close, which is completely normal. Then, without warning, he just stopped dancing with me. I didn’t think much of it, which was silly of me. Just then, another man on the other side of the dance floor caught my attention and motioned that I had just been pick-pocketed. I checked my pockets and was missing a 2,000 franc bill, about $3. I confronted the man and told him to give my money back. He denied he had done anything wrong, I insisted he had stolen money from me. Other men started to take interest and gathered around. The guy emptied his pockets. All he had was a filthy 500 franc bill. I didn’t realize until later that the first place that stolen goods go is directly into underpants. I smacked his back pockets, and he showed there was nothing in them. I felt there wasn’t much more I could do, and accepted that he had gotten the better of me. The other men at the bar, however did not give up so easily. Soon the guy was in the middle of a mob that appeared to be growing aggressive. The man was pleading with them, and on the verge of tears. Still, he refused to admit what he had done or where the money had gone. Although I had never seen anyone act violent towards thieves in Rwanda, I wasn’t sure this criminal was safe. I was second-guessing my case against him and didn’t want him beaten up in case I was wrong. I went into the mob and grabbed the man by the arm and pulled him away. The crowd followed. I told him he needed to leave and pulled him towards the gate at the entrance to the bar. The security guard closed the gate before we got there and the owner of the bar appeared. He wanted to take matters into his hands and grabbed the thief and slipped out the door of the gate with him. The guard shut the door behind them. The guard didn’t want to let me through, but I pushed my way past him. I didn’t trust the owner either. When I got out there, I explained to the owner that everything would be fine if we just made the thief leave. He agreed and stepped aside. Shockingly, the thief didn’t want to leave. He was weeping lightly and was still trying to tell me he didn’t do anything. I told him I didn’t care and told him to get out of here. I had to physically grab him, push him into the street and yell at him to leave. As he slowly backed away he was yelling apologies. I didn’t understand why he was apologizing and refusing to admit guilt at the same time. Maybe he just felt bad for simply leaving me in the middle of a dance. Because that’s what I do to people that snub me on the dance floor. I accuse them of theft and kick them out of the bar. 

***

Towards the end of the dry season, I noticed a rash of petty thefts in my village. All of them were occurring around dusk, which could have been a coincidence, or just seemed that way because it is the time I am most often walking around the village. The part that I really noticed, however, was the season. In the course of a couple weeks I noticed three small crowds gathering to deal with a theft. Again, they were all peaceful, mostly full of people like me that just wanted to know what was going on. I wondered if there was a reason these were happening late in the dry season. I remember after the bus hold up in the Philippines, I asked someone of if banditry was common in the area. They told me only in the dry season, when food is most scarce. If seasonal food insecurity led to a rise in theft in the Philippines, it would be surprising if it didn’t in Rwanda, where there is a much bigger problem with food production.

***

I saw a rare scene of commotion at my school one afternoon. A little bit of yelling, students crowding in one of the open areas outside. Whatever had happened was over quickly. I asked around about what had happened. Apparently there had been a fight. I asked about the cause and I was told that a boy had stolen another boy’s pen. It was one of those startling moments that reminded me of the reality of poverty. Rural poverty is so much less dramatic than urban poverty, but is very real. Also, I work at a boarding school, meaning that my students are not the poorest in the community by any means. Still, for teenage boys, something as trivial as a pen is worth stealing. And fighting over.

***

Breaking and entering. Yeah, it happens far more than I would expect. It happens to a lot of volunteers when they have been gone for a while. Window bars are sawed, locks are broken, and I even heard of one story where thieves dug a tunnel into a house.

A few months ago, my school became the victim. I walked into the teacher’s lounge one morning and there was a hole in the brick wall a meter wide. I didn’t think much of it. I figured there was some sort of renovation or repair going on. I sat down and went about my business. After a while I started noticing the other teachers entering and acting surprised by the hole. They were talking amongst themselves and pointing at the wall. Still I didn’t really pay much attention. Teachers never really tell me anything, so I’m kind of on my own to figure out these mysteries. I overheard in their conversations stuff about a thief and missing money.

I later learned that a burglar had entered the unlocked teacher’s lounge at night and smashed a hole through the wall to access the bursar’s office, where the school’s money is kept. About 4,000,000 francs, or about $6,000, were missing. In a couple hours a few police officers arrived to look at the scene and question some people. The night security guard was there, and for obvious reasons looked very nervous.

Later in the day I saw the police truck leaving the school with the security guard, the disciplinarian for the girls, and the woman who serves the food in the teacher’s lounge riding in the back. I wasn’t sure what this meant, and I tried to ask one of the teachers, but again, they don’t really tell me anything. I don’t know if they were ever suspects, but the disciplinarian and the server were back two days later. In the mean time, the teachers had to pour their own tea. Shame. I never saw the security guard again. I assume it is because he lost his job, since people tell me that they haven’t found the person who committed the crime yet. If the night guard somehow didn’t notice the banging of a wall with a sledgehammer, perhaps he was just too heavy of a sleeper to be doing security work.

I know very few facts about this case, and people never tell me more than just “nobody knows who did it”. I would be suspicious about what happened, but there seems to be no point. I’m just disappointed that the theft caused our teacher’s meeting after party to be cancelled. The meetings include free beer and it is the one time per term when the other teachers actually have conversations with me.

***

The one place in Rwanda that doesn’t seem to follow the pattern of theft that I’ve seen in Rwanda is Nyamirambo, a neighborhood in Kigali that I’ve mentioned several times before as being an anomaly in this orderly country.

I’ve never seen anything violent really, but I have heard stories of snatchings. I have also seen and heard of the more typical kind of street justice. One night, around 4AM I was getting an omelette on the street. It’s the one place in the country where something resembling street food exists. It is also the one place where staying out that late just happens by accident because there is enough to do. Suddenly I see a guy run down the side street I’m on, with a few other guys chasing after him. One of the guys near me joined in the chase. They caught up with him, and tackled him to the ground. Before they could get control of him, however, he slipped away and started running again. This guy was fast. He turned a corner and seemed to have escaped. I don’t know if he was ever caught, but someone told me that he had stolen a cell phone.

A secondhand story that I must admit has been filtered through a couple different people, so I can’t verify its accuracy. In the same neighborhood, a volunteer was at a bar when she realized that somebody had stolen her iPhone. She was fairly sure she knew who it was and got some people to help her. The man was forced to strip down. He thought he was going to get away with it. When he was down to his underwear, they made him keep going. The discovered the iPhone smashed between his butt cheeks. I probably would have admitted to the theft when it looked like a cavity search was coming. I’ve always been amazed at how far people will take their lies.

***

I feel that I am painting a negative picture of Rwanda, but I don’t mean to. The culture of theft has surprised and fascinated me. It’s not something that I think about or worry about on a daily basis. However, I do worry about it more than I have in other African countries. I don’t know if this is a result of my extended time here. With 15 months under my belt, maybe I have simply witnessed a lot more than I did in the other places I’ve been to.