A birthday with a reminder

So Saturday I turned 36.

Funny, I don't feel like I'm 36.  I mean, I still rock the Batman shoes.  I still feel like I'm 26, not 36.  Still, the birthday was a good one here in South Africa.  Lovely English Lass and I got to go to dinner with some friends to celebrate the night before, and even though Lovely Little Girl was a handful for our babysitter she still agreed to come back again.  So, success!

For my actual birthday we went to breakfast and then out to a lovely area near the Cradle of Humankind for lunch with a friend of the family.  We met his lovely wife and LLG seemed to really like her a lot.  The place had Shetland ponies, which Crazy Little Man swore were cows.  He wouldn't be dissuaded.  In the ends, it was a nice time and CLM asked these new friends if they wanted to come to his birthday at the end of the month.  Good times.

Oh, but did I mention the phone call I received during lunch?  Yeah, we got a call from our security officer to alert us to the armed robbery that occurred on our compound.  The one guarded 24 hours by an armed guard.  Where 3 families from the Consulate and Embassy live.  Yeah, that one.  You see, there is a house here that is for rent.  There are 5 houses on the compound, and we rent 3 of them.

It seems the man who was looking to rent the vacant house had withdrawn a large sum of money from a bank, and had been followed by the robbers for 13 miles to our compound where they pulled a gun on our guard and robbed the man looking to rent the place.  (I'm guessing he won't now.)  No one that lives on the compound was hurt or robbed, but it shocked us all.  My kids play out front on the driveway, and they could have been hurt.  The thought makes me feel ill and my skin crawl.

So, while it was a good day (finished with LEL and I watching Caddyshack! which she hated) it did serve as a reminder of the place we live in.  While it is a beautiful country, and the people are very nice, it can turn violent very quickly.  Not exactly the birthday wish I was looking for, but it was good to be reminded that we need to watch out more carefully.  Hopefully that'll be the last time we have something like that happen here, but I'll be planning to protect my family if it does happen again.