Theft

Was that down before? I stare at the blind through the closed window. It wasn't yesterday. Does that mean that Kim is back?
I open the electric gate that borders our house and hers and step through to find her side gate wide open. Something isn't right.
"Grant," I shout, running back into my own house. "Can you come with me?"
"To feed the cat? You can't do it yourself?"
"The gate is open."
It doesn't take much more convincing than that. Grant gets up from his seat, his father following, and together we go next door. Once we are through the side gate, our worst fears are confirmed. With the car not in the driveway, there's no way that Kim has come back from her holiday early. More open gates greet us, all with their locks missing, and splinters are scattered on the floor around the front door. We open it carefully, not knowing what we will find inside - they could still be there for all we know. But, as we step into the house, it's obvious that it has been abandoned - clothes litter what was once a neat lounge; cupboard doors are flung open, the cupboards themselves empty; the couches, empty of cushions, are covered in bits and pieces that have been scavenged from the house: empty cellphone boxes, more clothes, a small TV and a candelabra are scattered between numerous other items.
"Crap," I whispered as we glanced at a life of belongings strewn across the house without a thought for their owner. A doll torn apart upstairs, closets stripped bare, a fridge emptied and left wide open. This isn't what I would want to come home to.
"What do we do?" I am frozen, not wanting to move, not wanting to touch anything in case I destroy evidence, smudge fingerprints. I take out my cellphone, but realise that I don't even have Kim's number.
"Should we phone the police," Grant asks, turning to his dad - the two of them keeping their heads far better than I can.
Moments later, the cops arrive and start asking questions.
"Who are you?"
"Why are you here?"
"Where is the owner?"
"When did you arrive?"
I answer them one by one, trying to explain as much as I can, but there are questions that I can't answer. I cannot tell them what is missing, I cannot tell them whether the alarm works and I cannot tell them exactly what is out of place. Some things are obvious - the burgular bars hanging off the windows don't exactly scream safety - and other things are highly suspicious - the pitchfork with its bent prongs lying in the grass beside the window seems to scream "look at me!"
After my interrogation is over, once the fingerprinters have been and gone, once the landlady has been dealt with, the alarm has been set and the house has been locked up as well as we can manage, we head back to our side of the house, separated only by a garage door and a wall, and return to normalcy. I can't explain why, but our side of the wall just seems safer, as though nothing can touch us. And yet, as I drift off to sleep, my dreams are permeated with images of robbers and thieves, taking my stuff and destroying my piece of mind.

Why Grahamstown?

After yesterday's rant about trying to find a job, it struck me (not for the first time) that I am not exactly in the ideal place for finding one. Grahamstown is a small town, mostly populated by students, and unless you want to get involved in the academic side of things by becoming a lecturer (not really something I am qualified to do), there are not too many job opportunities available. So today I thought I would write about why I wanted to come to Grahamstown. And no, this is not going to be a sappy love story because, though my boyfriend's living here was a big contributor towards my moving here, there are other reasons to live in Grahamstown.

Let's start with one of the biggies. When I went out with my friends in Cape Town, a lot of them were shocked that I had a midnight curfew when I was almost 23 years old. They were even more shocked when I told them that my 28 year old sister has the same curfew. A little understanding came in when I explained why. After a serious break-in two years ago, my parents are extremely worried about crime. They have put up laser beams and electric fences around the house, jacked up their alarm system and implimented a number of security measures within the house as well, including burgular bars over every door, mobile panic buttons and nails holding in the sliding door (where the burgulars came in the first time around). My parents will also wait up for us to come home to make sure that no one stole our remotes and we aren't being followed by some dodgy characters.
When I first heard that Grant doesn't set the alarm at night (I heard about this because he came home to find the alarm on and had no recollection of the code), I was absolutely horrified.
"I don't want to live in a house that can't be alarmed," I practically shouted down the phone.
And then I remembered. This isn't Cape Town. Though crimes certainly do happen here, they are rarely of the serious nature that crimes in the bigger cities tend to lend themselves to. There are muggings, there are smash and grabs (I had more than enough of those), there are break-ins, but these are usually crimes of opportunity - someone sees a laptop easily grabable and decides to snatch it. They are rarely premeditated.

A lack of serious crime is a big reason for wanting to move away from the big cities, especially after living in Korea for a year where I got used to not locking my door at night (it had an automatic lock, but I also never had any problems) and walking around on my own. But there is more to it than that. Another big part of wanting to come to Grahamstown, and a big reason why Grant has stayed here as long as he has, is because of all the friendly faces that we have come to know and love. I feel the need to burst into song here - Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came. This is definitely the case in Grahamstown. Though most of my friends from my university days have now moved on to better places (Cape Town, Johannesburg, Port Alfred), I am always pleasantly surprised when I walk down the street and hear my name being called or when I walk into a bar to a warm reception from the manager. I can walk into any bar in Grahamstown, any restaurant, any shop and can practically guarantee that there will be at least one familiar or friendly face.

Familiarity is another big reason for wanting to stay in Grahamstown, and here I don't mean the familiarity of people. It is nice to live in a town and know exactly where things are without having to look it up in a mapbook. It is nice to stay somewhere that you have spent some time getting to know. The fact that Grahamstown is small certainly contributes to this - I have lived in Cape Town for most of my life, and will still have to look up directions to places. It is great when you can talk about a place with someone and they know exactly where you mean. It is great to know the hidden treasures of a town, and yes - even a town as small as Grahamstown has hidden treasures. Ask anyone about Grey Dam and you will see what I mean.

More than just the familiarity of the town, I love the simplicity of small town living. I like being able to park my car and take a walk around the town. I like that there are only two areas to do shopping in, and everyone knows exactly where they are. I like being able to do everything in one go - go to the doctor, then walk next door to the pharmacy, then walk next door to do some grocery shopping and finish it all off by walking next door to do some clothing shopping (or window-shopping as the case is for me at the moment). Everything is so close and life here is so simple. There are few stresses (the lack of crime and the lack of traffic taking away some of the more serious worries of big-city living) and the few that they are are fairly easily solvable.

I mentioned this earlier, but I feel the need to mention it again - the fact that Grahamstown has no traffic is a HUGE plus. Not having to sit around in a car for half an hour to get to work and another half an hour to get home (and I am being incredibly lenient here) is an absolute pleasure. As I said before, a majority of the people residing in Grahamstown itself (and I am not talking about the outskirting townships here) are students, and a vast majority of these don't have cars. There is no need - in a city where you can walk everywhere you need to go, why do you need to have a car? This essentially means that the most traffic you will get is five minutes waiting at a four-way stop when people are confused as to where to go.

And, though there are a number of other reasons why living in Grahamstown is great, there is one more reason why I love living here in particular. As I drove into Grahamstown after my ten hour drive from Cape Town, it hit me just how beautiful this city is. As I drove past the dam by the Botanical Gardens and through the streets lined with Jacarandas, I remembered how much I love this city and what a pleasure it is to be back. It is everything that I missed in Korea - green, wide open spaces; elegant, historical buildings, towering cathedrals. As I said to Ashlea when she visited last week, everything in Grahamstown has a history, and it is oh so easy to read that history from the faces of the houses and buildings that you see all around you.

So basically, despite the soul-destroying job-hunt, it is wonderful to be back in Grahamstown! My question for today: What is one of the fondest memories of a place you used to call home?