How do you handle problems with neighbors?

In April, we had an incident with some neighborhood girls.  We often struggle against neighborhood kids who think that normal rules of politeness in this culture do not apply to us, because of our skin color.  For instance, one must always greet properly, especially before asking for something.  But often youth will come to us asking or even demanding something from us, having never respected us enough to greet us.  They quickly find out that we actually do know the culture around here, and do not try it again.  But in April, we had a different type of incident.  It is not important to retell to all of you the incident, but I wanted to share with you how we got it resolved.

I told our house helper about the situation two days later.  She was very upset and said we needed to go talk to them.  We needed to let the girls and their families know that we would take them to the police if this ever occurred again. Her initial reaction was echoed by our language teacher, who said she would have chased them down and beat them.  Our language teacher agreed with the house helper but took it a step further, in that we also needed to go talk to the chief of the neighborhood to let him know about the event, because the chief knows about everything that goes on in the neighborhood and is the step before the police.  In the event we had to go to the police, the police would go to the chief for more information.   

That afternoon our house helper went with us to track down a lead to find the girls that were involved and address them.  To start with, the girls denied being any part of it.  But Mariama was sure she recognized them and someone else came in to confirm it.  Finally a girl confessed to being a part of it.  She began to show signs of guilt and repented.  She begged for forgiveness.  We said we forgave her but also warned her if it was to happen again.  She and a friend begged us not to go to the chief, but we insisted we must.

We went to the chief's home.  Unfortunately he was out, so we left a message and asked him to come visit us.  Our house helper went by to remind him as well.  He did not show.  We waited another day, and then we went back to the chief's house.  We explained what happened and how we handled it.  He wanted to make sure from what house the girls were.  He understood the situation and thanked us for coming to him. 

We want to feel at home in the place where we live, but I wonder if we will ever really feel like we belong.