Here in Arequipa, it seems like crime has gone down since when we arrived in 2000. My informal poll of taxi drivers reveals a similar sentiment. One of our missionary colleagues that has had his spare tire stolen three times would probably disagree. I assume it is because the economy is better and there are less desperate people stealing things. The situation in Venezuela would back my hypothesis as an article on CNN just today said that 47% of Venezuelans were robbed during 2017. There are lots of desperate people there. Around 2 or 3 am on Tuesday morning our recently-installed car alarm went off. Car alarms in Peru are like robins chirping in Nebraska: They are a bit annoying early in the morning but don't really mean much. Mary Beth said, "That's our car!" I shut off the alarm with my key fob and looked out the window and didn't see (0r hear) anything and went back to bed. Yesterday, I noticed that the passenger door wouldn't lock and unlock properly and I realized that someone had destroyed the keyhole with some sort of tool. I mentioned it on our neighborhood chat group and our neighbor said that they hadn't been so lucky and the thief had gotten into their car and stolen their radio that same morning.
So for now, I'll go back to parking our truck in the garage. It's a bit annoying to do that since our cats like to hide in the engine compartment and I have fears of replicating the cold winter day from my childhood when 9 cats were trying to keep warm in the pickup and...wait you don't want to hear that story!
I'll just say that I'm thankful for our car alarm. We can't lock or unlock the passenger door with a key now, but that seems pretty minor. (we still can lock/unlock it with the fob)
