Now they're stealing....

So before we left for Dubai, I woke up to discover that my music player in my car was gone.

Those children who had woken my husband and I up the night we went searching through the neighbor for the rascals had stolen it from my car. We had seen them run out the gate of the yard, coming from the area where I park the car, but naively (or just sleepily) hadn't thought that they would have stolen anything.

George spoke to one of our neighbors and told him that he expects it to be returned in a few days, but what's the "or else"? What kind of sway do we hold? We don't have a picture of the boys, so we can't go to the police. We don't know which family. There are SO many children here that God knows which house they belong to. What CAN we do? Basically I think the kids just got away with it. Who is going to own up to it? Who's going to admit stealing (totally haram by the way)?

I think it's gone. But really I care less about loosing my music player than the fact that they just learned the lesson that they can walk on us. We just don't know the families. Accountabilty here comes from being known. Who knows you? Who's it going to get back to? That's what keeps things in check and we just don't have that.

So what can we do?

I bought a pad lock. I hate to be more isolated but I'm sure as hell not letting anybody in our yard until it gets returned. Otherwise there was no "societal consequence", you could call it, to disrespecting us.

Any advice? Seriously.