Called to Court

Yesterday Marc received a text message on his cell phone from the Tribunal Justice in town. That is equivalent to our court system. They requested his presence in court at 8:30 am this morning. At first when you get a message like this is a country like Mozambique you wonder and question what is going on. You never know what might be happening. You could be called and charged with something or it could be to do with something random. In our case it turns out he was called in order to watch the proceedings against two thieves that are supposedly the thieves that were involved in an armed robbery at our center back in March. Although we are impressed that they "have the guys" we will never truly know the full story. This is Mozambique after all where justice is far from democratic. So Marc dutifully went to court this morning as requested. He was prepared for it to take some time because things here just do. Good thing he was because he ended up sitting from 8:30-1:15 WAITING. Those in charge apologized that they had forgotten to have the thieves brought from the prison. Here once you are accused you are held in prison until you can prove that you are innocent not the other way around like in the USA. So the men in charge sent a note to the prison requesting that the thieves be brought to the court house but they still were not brought. SO court will wait for another day as it will be rescheduled. At the end of it all they told Marc he doesn't need to be there because the case is really with our staff member that was attacked. Some days are more productive than others and some things you just have to laugh about.