To Guard or Not To Guard

So now you know about the walls.  And I briefly mentioned the guards.  But since we are about to move into our own place, now it's time to delve into this mysterious and confusing subject.

Everyone has a guard.  Almost everyone, at least.  Like the walls, you find them at almost every private house, business, NGO, school, or restaurant.

But the guard thing is so f.ing WEIRD, and no one seems to talk about it.  Maybe no one else thinks it's weird???  But here is the deal...

We are house-sitting right now.  We are house-sitting in the land of plenty.  Our house has 24 hour guards, a full time housekeeper, a full time cook, and 2 (maybe 3?) full time nannies when the family is home.  That is an extremely strange situation for us, for so many reasons, but let me focus on the guards.

Imagine yourself preparing dinner.  You finish cooking the pasta and veg on your outdoor stove, and are inside assembling your plate, your glass of wine, your water.  Outside, (in the dark until you see him and turn on the light) your elderly guard is fumbling around, heating up the left over rice and beans the housekeeper made earlier in the day.  You see each other through the window.  I wave.  I ponder inviting him in for dinner.  This is not what you are supposed to do, and that would also be super weird.  So I don't.  When his food is finished heating, he takes it.  I don't know where.  Somewhere in the dark; into the chilly night.  To eat on his own.  Later, you hear him washing up. In the dark.

I don't know if the guards are supposed to stay awake all night or not.  But they usually sleep, with a hoodie pulled tight around their heads, occasionally with a light sheet or blanket over them, sitting in a chair by the gate.  Though this morning ours was laying across the garden furniture.  We have a little "guard post" at our house - where they can sit, read, stay out of the rain, by the gate.  The neighbors seem to have no such spot, and their guards seem to just lay on the grass outside their gate.  So when we drive home at night, they invariably sit up in the light, hoodies tied around their faces, worried it might be their employer.  Sometimes our guard seems to be canoodling, spooning with them.  What do these guards do in the rainy season?

So there is the issue of feeling bad for the guard - because you are in your nice warm house cooking lovely food and eating in the light.  And they are alone, cold, outside in the dark, eating their rice and beans.  For some reason that seems heartbreakingly sad to me.  OH and don't forget the issue of the separate bathroom, outside, for the staff.  Which seems to invariably be kinda gross.

But maybe this is me pushing my Western ideals here.  A job is a job?  I'm quite sure the guard doesn't want to hang out with me.  But should I be able to get used to ignoring him?  I am the outsider.  He is the norm.  So should I follow his lead?  Or try to push my idea of a more normal, acceptable employer/employee house staff relationship?  What would that even look like here?  Is it wrong to accept the norm here, and embrace and further this practice?  Or is it wrong to stand up against it, and push my own ideals which come from a completely different, foreign, inapplicable society?  When I feel sad about where a worker eats his dinner, am I patronizing him?  Perhaps.

The other issue is privacy.  There is none.  The guard is always there - shuffling around watering plants, doing something at the kitchen, cleaning up the pool.  Want to lay out topless?  No such luck.  Want to water the garden in your skimpy nightgown?  Bad idea.  Want to just have your own space and not share it with someone else 24 hours a day?  Well, you can go inside.  But they can still see you.  And hear you.  And you can still see them.  And hear them.  Want to sit at the outdoor table and do some work?  Better be prepared to exchange kind words with the staff.  (Oh, and the two staff that work inside the house all day, M-F?  No escaping them!).

There is also the question of why you need a guard, since everyone in town claims Kigali is the safest place in all of Africa, and the large majority of people say it is actually safer than pretty much anywhere else they've lived.  Also, the guards aren't armed, so I'm very confused about what he's actually supposed to do if three guys with machetes come to gate looking to rob the place.  How would he stop them?  Maybe he could yell to the other guards?  Who are also unarmed?  I just don't get it.  Some people say it's actually just an employment scheme - that as a muzungu, you're just expected to hire help.  Our friends say that people stop by their house every week asking for a job, doing anything, for extremely low pay.  So you're supposed to hire staff and, rather than feeling like a bourgeois colonialist, you're supposed to feel good that you're providing a stable job for someone.  But I still feel like a bourgey colonialist, and I'm certainly not sure that depending on expats and wealthy locals to employ house staff is the best plan for the economic development of a nation.

No one else here seems to find this as bizarre or awkward as I do.  But we have been greatly struggling with whether or not we should get a guard for our new house.  It's a tiny one bedroom, with good, locking metal shutters, but very easy to climb the walls and get onto the property.  We are really really tired of being around staff.  And I really, really want to be able to enjoy our huge garden without chatting with the guard, or being stared at by him, or feeling bad that it is cold and he is outside by himself.

When we ask about safety, we, as usual, hear conflicting views.  Some say a guard is absolutely necessary.  If you don't have one, everyone will know, and it's just inviting a robbery to happen.  Others say more often than not, a guard is the one involved when a robbery occurs.  A very select few say the whole thing is hogwash and just an employment scheme, but then most of these same people also say you'll probably get robbed if you don't have one. :/  And, it sounds like most of the robberies that happen involve "casing", or someone following you so they'll know exactly when you can be expected to be home or away.  We don't really have anything to steal except our laptops, which are often with us.  But then again, an employee at the farm I volunteer at, who makes $1.50/day and basically owns nothing, was broken into and the few things and pieces of clothing he had put aside for their expected baby got stolen.  Along with everything else.

So, this is where we stand.  Suggestions?  We are leaning toward 24 guards.  We need help cutting the grass.  And I really don't want to get robbed.  My laptop may be all I have, but IT IS ALL I HAVE!  I do NOT want to lose it.  And being broken into would probably make me feel extra uncomfortable in a place I am still getting used to.  So I guess I will have to tell our guard to have fun with the other guards while we are home - snuggle, spoon, listen to the radio together, but please don't watch me read or garden.  And please don't wash my car (another of the typical guard duties.  Daily car washing, despite a severe water shortage!!!?!?).

I wish I didn't have to consider these questions and contradictions.  But they are part of life here.  Driving an SUV, having a guard, living in a walled compound, eating in a restaurant in Central Africa that is only filled with other white guests.  You can see from my posts, these are things I'm constantly thinking about.  Struggling with.  Making me uncomfortable.  But this is life in Africa.  It is not easy, and feeling anything but out of place here is no easy task.

But I guess it's also what makes interesting.  And challenging.  I can't ignore these questions that arise every day.  But I also can't seem to make sense of them.  And in a way, that's what's best about being here...

But it's also what's worst.

Please share your thoughts.

In the Land of a Thousand Walls

I live in a walled city.  But not the cute, ancient kind you find in stony, charming, European cities, where a crumbling wall surrounds the quaint village with cobblestone streets, and you can walk through tiny alleys lined with gorgeous, tiny stone houses with colorful shutters and flowers in the window box.

No, my walls don't surround this hilly city, but rather they surround every house, restaurant, and business here.  So driving down the street, or walking around your neighborhood, all you see is walls and walls and walls.  You can wonder and wonder about what is inside there - what kind of gorgeous abode, what kind of perfectly manicured garden, or interesting vegetables may be growing in the yard, or cute dogs laying in the driveway, or nice family enjoying a barbeque.  You can wonder, but you will never know.

Fortunately, Kigali is also a city of hills, so while up close all you can see is walls - there are also sweeping views of the opposite hills, with their walled compounds and pretty gardens visible from a distance.  There are also stark contrasts (as Africa is riddled with) like bougainvilla weaving in and out of barbed wire, avocados dropping on glass shard covered walls.

The greatest contrast ot all, and one of the things I am most puzzled about in Kigali, is the number of walled compounds compared to the number of "normal" houses that regular Rwandans live in.  I don't know how to be p.c. about this - I'm brand new here and basically understand nothing.  But these walled compounds are everywhere, literally covering - idk- maybe 80+ percent of the city?  At least that's how it appears.  Where do the regular folk live???  And who lives in all the mansions????

Kigali is expensive, in so many ways.  Rent ranges anywhere from $400-$6000+ (at least that's the range I've found.  Perhaps if your more of a veteran, or know where to look, you could find better?).  But usually the lowest you see advertised for a self contained house is $600.  We consider ourselves extremely lucky to have found a tiny one bedroom house for $420 (more on that when we move in...).  I don't know what the average salary is in Kigali, but I know it ain't enough to afford $400+ in rent, plus other expenses.

Aside from the walled compounds, there are also little settlements of more traditional houses - mostly made of cement, that are snuggled into hillsides and valleys.  But they seem to be few and far between, and I just don't understand how there's enough housing for everyone who makes a regular salary, and how regular Rwandans aren't infuriated that such a vast amount of their land is taken up by these massive compounds.  All the expats live in compounds (with poorer, younger, NGO workers and volunteers sharing a big house with a bunch of roommates - usually $400-$700/room, and with better paid professionals living in fancy mansions all to themselves and their families).  But there are way more compounds than expats, which indicates there are many well-off Rwandans, which is great.  But are there that many?  

A stinky pic of the more normal houses...will get a better one.

Where do all the moto drivers live?  The restaurant workers?  The shop employees?  The guards (who make about $50-$100/month)?  The housekeepers and nannies (same salary)?  The many, many unemployed?  It's a mystery.

I have never lived somewhere like this before - being separated from my neighbors by walls.  And a guard at every house.  I do not like it very much.  Actually, I don't like it at all.  But we must build community in other ways - by being friendly with the shopkeeper, by smiling on your evening walk, and.... other ideas?  This is something I am struggling with, but hope to learn.

It makes me miss Derrick, my neighbor in Bed-Stuy, who so often was sitting on his stoop with various friends, enjoying a smoke or a beer.  He'd bitch about work (installing A/Cs), or his back (he threw it out), while I told him about teaching, or we joked about Cat (who he claimed was definitely keeping the rodent population down in his building).  Or the other neighbors - the opera singer, his wife, and two cute kids, who would always ask about the chickens.  It makes me miss my neighbors in Belize and Thailand, who were a rather intimate part of my life - chosen or not.  So often, I'd wished for isolation and disliked sharing the necessary pleasantries with neighbors when I was exhausted coming home from work. Now, I crave them.

We will also soon be moving into our own walled compound, but we hope to meet some of our neighbors.  Every last Saturday of the month here is "umuganda".  Which is when everything shuts down, and everyone is required to work with their neighbors on a common task - cleaning up, helping build someone's house, cutting back plants, etc.  We haven't participated yet (it's not expected of foreigners) but hope to in our new neighborhood, in hopes of sharing something common, of working together, of feeling something other than isolated.  Behind a wall.

Me and my SUV

That's right.  I am now the unproud owner of a lean, mean, green, somewhat dorky Rav 4, and I drive it everywhere.  

It actually belongs to me and Alex, but since he was always working, I was the one who dealt with all the paperwork, the offices, the stamps, and so my name is on the title.  It is, BY FAR, the most expensive thing I have ever owned - by a factor of at least 3 (probably more).

I mentioned how hard it is to get around here, and how we're advised not to take motos anywhere (and I guess I can say, having been here 6 weeks now, I have seen at least one major moto accident and several minor ones), and since we're moving to the top of a gigantic mountain that is very far from normal transport options, we pretty much had to buy one.  I have very, very mixed feelings.

Having a car definitely makes things easier.  We have some more freedom, and there is less stress when we have to get something done, and it's definitely better when I have to be at work at 7.15 a.m.  But I can't begin to tell you how weird it feels to drive around Africa in my big SUV that I bought (we bought) with all our spare cash.  It's just kind of....ick.  And so not what I'm used to.

That said, I'm happy we have it, as going anywhere (especially together) before was a total nightmare.

We had a hard time deciding if we really needed an SUV, or could get around in a sedan.  The majority of roads here are paved, and great.  But there are many that are unpaved, and have foot deep ruts throughout them.  And now that I've seen a pickup truck get stuck for 20 minutes in our soon-to-be driveway, I'm pretty happy we splurged.  The last few hundred meters to the house we are moving into are.....well....quite something.  And I'm sure I'll have some very exciting rainy season adventures to share here.

mechanical inspection

Our hot new ride.

Most expensive thing I've ever owned.

There is much, MUCH information I could share here about buying a car in Kigali - but I fear the details will bore too many of you.  Suffice to say the office visits were impressively quick (though I did have to go back three times), I did pay a 5,000 rwf bribe (a bit under $10) - but it saved us a day, I did spend many, many hours of my life preparing to buy said car, and, supposedly, we found a good deal.

We were hoping to buy something with a bit more style - like an old school, beat up range rover or land cruiser.  But apparently they cost 3 times as much.  And we pretty much had to get a Toyota, because apparently it can take months to get parts for a Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Nissan, etc.  I definitely wanted to play it safe when it comes to repairs.  Rav 4s are kinda lame, but with 4wd, the Toyota reputation, and the fact that 1/3 people have them makes it the obvious choice.

Another fun fact about our SUV is that we're spending about $170 a month in gas, to go absolutely no where except around town.

!!!!!!????!?!?!?!??!?!?!???!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?

Holy crappers.  I don't think I would have bought the SUV if I had known that.  MAJOR BUMMER.  Alex says our lives are worth it.  I'm still unsure.

So let's play a game....
Since many people are apparently reading this blog, but no one is commenting on it, let me entice you.
It's a 1999 Rav 4, with supposedly 84,000 miles (which has obviously been doctored but what can you do?), with mechanic's approval, working a/c, and decent stereo.

Anyone want to wager a guess on the price???  Winner gets bragging rights...
(Hint: don't forget we're in RWANDA!)