Don't Ever Say "Yet"

I don’t have the energy to go over the terrible events that passed, so I will just copy an email I sent out with the names removed and other confidential information excised.

Now that I have my computer charged, I feel like I should write everything down before I forget it all.  Though, at this point, I don't know how I could forget it.

Yesterday, after the horrible day before, FS called Polycarpe, his tail between his legs, to apologize for creating such a scene and to beg us to stay in the house.  Polycarpe had told him we were going to find another house to live in, and he didn't want that.  He said his only problem was Olivier and Seba living there.  They were workers, he reasoned.  Why didn't they live somewhere else and come to work like other people?

We compromised and agreed to have Olivier and Seba live somewhere else, and Fat Shady said he would end the whole affair with the stolen tin.  He knows, I am convinced, that Seba and Olivier didn't steal it or have anything to do with its theft.

Fat Shady told us to send Olivier and Seba over to the police station to finish their statements, and he would call the commandant and end the whole investigation.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that FS did the exact OPPOSITE of what he promised.  The commandant had found absolutely no evidence of Olivier and Seba's guilt, but FS refused to drop the charges until the tin was repaid (by Olivier and Seba). He communicated this, I'm told, directly with the commandant when he called to "end the fiasco."

So he TRICKED us into sending the guys over, promising that he had ended it when really, he was just continuing it.

The real nasty clincher?  He demanded 9000 FC per piece of tin - 90,000FC total.  Dido went and inquired with the guy FS BOUGHT the tin from and he told Dido that Fat Shadypaid 3000FC for each piece.

It wasn't even new tin.  It was sort of old and rusted.

FS, of course, knows that Olivier and Seba can't pay 90,000 FC and that I'll have to pay it, so he's, in effect, stealing money from the project here.

What was even worse was that, even after we paid the money to the police, AND the additional "$50 release fee" for the two, they had to STAY in prison FOR HOURS.  They were actually IN the prison with leg cuffs on, given NO food OR water.  For EIGHT HOURS.

The riseau over Aketi must have been down, because I was unable to make ANY phonecalls yesterday despite repeated attempts to call ANYONE.

So Olivier and Seba finally came home around 7 pm, 9 hours after they'd gone to the police originally, and went to sleep somewhere else since Mawai now has the only keys to the depot and they're not allowed to sleep here.

At THREE this MORNING, I awake in a start to horrible noises -- clattering and clanging, etc.  And then I hear Polycarpe start to scream and I run out of bed with no pants on and there are THIEVES here again.

FS’s claim was that the tin was stolen because Olivier and Seba propped it up against the wall, putting them at "fault", but here is a thief, his arm stuck through the bars of the depot, the tin halfway out the window.  He's stealing tin that was lying on the FLOOR.  NOT propped up.

It suddenly explains how 10 pieces of tin are missing and we only caught thieves once stealing two pieces.  Probably long before Olivier OR Seba stayed in the depot, these thieves were stealing tin from the pile of tin on the floor in the depot.

Either way, it should never have been our responsibility to pay for the tin.  FS sent me constant text messages yesterday (which I could receive but not send out) telling me what idiots (betises) and delinquents Seba and Olivier were and that if I wanted to keep them on, they couldn't stay in HIS house.

But here we were last night, an old man and two half-asleep mondeles, and there were thieves AT the house and I have NEVER FELT MORE UNSAFE IN MY LIFE.

We are going to search out another house today but FS is a BAD GUY.  Seriously, this isn't even funny anymore or about ivory or mattresses or anything else.