This will be a long one… 
A few months ago, in the morning of my mother’s 50-teenth birthday, I woke up somehow and noticed that my curtains were open, and Thylvethter was looking outside. I had some missing louvers at the top end of the window where Thyl used to climb out of. I thought it could be one of two things: either Thyl was trying to get out and climbed on the curtains which opened them a bit, or someone from outside was trying to fish out stuff from my room!
So I got up, closed the curtain and sat on my computer desk. I sat there just staring at the part of the curtain that had been opened and I was also checking my emails + Facebook. I kept glancing over at the curtains every few seconds however, because I am generally a paranoid person so I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that it could have very well been an attempted robbery.
What I didn’t imagine though, was that the person was still there! I am not a criminal – so I obviously don’t think like one. I always assumed that if someone who was trying to steal something were to get caught (in this case, I woke up and actually closed the curtains), they would just run away and try some other place.
A few seconds later, I saw the curtains moving…like someone was trying to peek inside. I jumped out of my chair and ran out of the living room. My door makes a rather loud noise when I open it so I assumed the person would hear it and just run away into the street. But there were actually 2 of them and they were one step ahead of me!
One of them did run into the streets and I shouted at the person. It was about 5:15 am and I didn’t really want to wake up my family so I just went back to my room. I thought about it, and decided to wake up my twin sister. I just knocked on her door and whispered “can you believe someone opened my curtains and was trying to fish stuff from my room?” she replied, “you’re kidding…”.
My mother came out of her room and I was talking to them right at my door, constantly checking my curtain. At the time, I saw a person run away into the streets so I assumed the robber was gone. Suddenly, I saw my curtains being lifted again! I shouted “oh my God the person’s still here!” and the person dropped the curtain. He peeked again a few minutes later, so my mum shouted at him in Creole “what do you want? we’re calling the police!” and she called the police.
About 5-10 minutes later the police was here…they came in a rented vehicle. There were two officers: one of them was sleeping in the front seat of the car, and the other one came out without a weapon. The guy went around the house, and upstairs, and didn’t find anyone. So he took an account from me, check to see if there were any finger prints on my louvers (he checked for fingerprints using his naked eyes, not with any fingerprint kits) and he didn’t see any so he left.
Anyway, I did see the back of the robber who ran off. He was dark (dark brown, not “black”) with an afro (not the style, but the result you get when you haven’t had a haircut in half a year or more). He wore khaki-coloured shorts and a buttoned-shirt. He carried a bag or a plastic bag…and a stick (similar to what’s used to catch mangoes). These sticks are very long, and sometimes they have blades or a knife attached to one end.
Well, that was one Saturday morning.
Last week, on Friday night I heard my twin sister shout something like “[Sabrina]! Thylvethter…there’s someone outside!”. It was a definite high-scream so I knew it was something serious. Initially, because it was indistinct I thought she said Thylvethter was outside and that something bad had happened to the cat (because the day before, our neighbour’s cat was runover by a vehicle on the main road next to our house).
I ran out of my room and my sister’s face looked pale, she said that there was someone outside and that she saw Thylvethter staring at the toilet’s window. So she stared at the window too, and then she saw the curtain move (like someone was trying to peek).
A few hours before that incident, we went to the shop to buy meat for Dominique because we were going to Praslin.
That morning, I woke up and went to the fridge to get some of my tomato juice. Tomato juice isn’t something that’s always available in the house, so everyone knows that it’s mine and nobody was allowed to take it without my permission. The only other person in the household that enjoys tomato juice is my mum, but she’s not in the country at the moment. So yeah, I went to the fridge and was surprised to see my whole juice box gone. It’s a Rs 40 juice box, and in Seychelles standard, it’s the priciest juice type in the store because it’s 100% real fruit juice.
I knew it couldn’t have been my twin sister…so at the time I quickly assumed it was my younger brother Dominique. I thought ‘okay, maybe he was THAT thirsty…’ and it didn’t really cross my mind again.
An hour later, I went outside where my sister was smoking and she casually commented “huh…someone left their juice box here”. We live next to the road so sometimes, people will just throw stuff on our property or they’ll just sit on a rock and leave their lunch leftovers on the land.
I stared at the juice box and I said “hey, that’s my juice!” my sister laughed…I’m not sure why but she could have thought that I had left it there. Then I was like “oh shit, don’t tell me…our meat!” I ran to the fridge and found out that our sealed packages of meat was missing!
This brought a flashback of the day I left for China years ago. After my farewell party, the place got robbed and they stole my phone plus a few other things. It’s really horrible for such a nasty incident to occur right before you leave. So right before our Praslin trip, I really left Mahe feeling worried.
A few days ago, on Friday at around after 8pm (same time last week) we heard some footsteps on the grass outside. Our neighbours’ dogs tend to come by all the time but the difference between a dog and human is the type of footsteps. Dogs aren’t careful and don’t try to be quiet. Also, they tend to “trot”. Humans on the other hand; especially robbers, try to be as quiet as possible. They also have two legs, so you will either hear one step if they’re trying to be really quiet or two-three steps.
That said, most of the time humans will also come with a distinct smell: either perfume, B.O. or that sweaty T-shirt smell you’ll smell after P.E.
I rushed to get my camera and actually opened the window of the backyard (very poor lighting). I took two shots of the area where my juice box was found (there is a sort of descent there that could work as a hiding place). Unfortunately, I had it set to email size and not high-resolution. On the camera’s preview screen, I didn’t see anything. But just today, I uploaded the pictures to my computer and zoomed (I don’t know what made me do that) and what do you know: hiding behind some bushes and on the exact location where they placed my juice box: an idiot’s head.
This looks like an Indian man, but it could also pass for a mulatto-looking fellow. Definitely not a Caucasian, or a ‘black’ person. We do have lots of Indian construction workers living in the district, but I don’t get their possible motive. A construction worker will most likely know and hangout with other construction workers. So why would they want to fish stuff from people’s houses?
So I’m guessing that this person is definitely a local (i.e. Indian-Seychellois or brown/mulatto). I’ve attached the photo on this post, you can see for yourself. This is really messed up.
We’ll really be watching out and expecting them this coming Friday. This time we’ll be ready with high resolution cameras. We only need a proper and clear picture of the person.
