Laying in wait for Dan…

A few nights ago a man wielding a brushhook (see picture) lay in wait for Dan and his ‘so-called accomplice’ near their vehicle. Nope, I’m not exaggerating, just rushing to the juicy part. So let me back track and start at the beginning…

We were just heading to bed around 10.30pm when our friends called us from Entebbe Airport (our national airport – I won’t mention any names, but some of you will guess who they are). They were about to fly back for an overdue stay with family but… they realised at check-out that they had picked an expired passport instead of a current one. It’s that moment that we all dread isn’t it… but this story just gets better and better.

Dan organised with a neighbour (who also works as a driver) to go to their nearby house and break into their locked shed to retrieve the passport. It was well after lockdown but we had no choice. One of our colleagues was staying in their house. I tried to call her but she never answered. Our friends also told us they would ring their close neighbour to tell her what was happening (this never happened).

Dan grabs a hammer and a chisel, the driver picks him up and they set off…

The driver initially tried to wake our colleague/house sitter inside. She woke quite easily, but stayed silent inside… not sure of the strange voice calling out to her and fearing the worst. It wasn’t until Dan yelled out that she recognised his voice and came outside.

The shed door was double padlocked (inside and out). The outside padlock was easy to remove, although it was loud. The inside padlock, however, was impossible to break with a small space to work with – so they decided to break the door out. It took the guys more than an hour to chisel the door out of the brickwork.

During this time our colleague/house-sitter had attempted several times to go across and alert the neighbour to what was happening, however she thought she was asleep and didn’t want to wake her. Meanwhile inside her house, the neighbour was certainly awake, frightened and had been calling for help. She called the LC1 (the local leader who handles pretty much everything), and she had even called a radio station searching for the police inspector’s phone number. The LC1 had sent a security officer to go and inspect.

Whilst the guys were chiselling out the door, the security officer approached the neighbourhood with a brushhook. He doesn’t get too close, jumps to the conclusion that they are breaking in, and thought he would lay down, hide amongst the grass near the suspected getaway car and attack them on their exit. Thankfully he was waiting quite a while and thought he would go and survey the size of the ‘assailants’. He crawled closer and stayed low. During one time when our colleague/house-sitter came out to try the neighbour again, the camouflaged security officer coughs and enquires in a whisper voice as to what is happening. That’s the moment when the air was cleared and everything came to light – thankfully. And… still wielding his brushhook, the security officer goes over and helps them cut the door out.

The passport was delivered safely, and our friends are now on the other side of the world.