Life in the village

We live in a five storey block of flats. It stands in quite spacious grounds surrounded by massive trees. In front is a car park and a large swimming pool screened to some extent by low walls. It is in the embassy quarter, and is largely occupied by embassy staff, mainly Japanese and Swedish. In other words a pretty stuffy place.

But the people who are renting the flats are not the only occupants of the territory. At the front there are the guards and usually a few policemen, casually draped with AK 47s. They sit around all day, very bored, having the occasional chat with passing police and other persons in their social set. Or pass a few salacious remarks to the many women who walk past.

There is also an army of gardeners, caretakers, pool cleaners, sweepers and so on. As far as I know there are only a few who actually live on the property: but whether they live on the property or not, they occupy it. They have parties, they watch television, they sleep, they wander around when they are bored. When they are feeling important they turn up their walkie-talkies to full volume as they inspect the building.

Very respectful mind you, and there’s no occupation of our spaces such as the swimming pool. No, this is apartheid, all right. They have their space at the back, and we have ours at the front.

But how come there are so many? In part it is because wages are so low that it costs very little to employ so many. And in the case of the police, many don’t get paid at all: they inherit the uniform from a brother who has died, and then just pretend. No one minds. They get their income from bribes. In the health service about 50% of the junior staff are not government employees, they work on the basis that they will get enough tips/bribes to survive. This is no secret – its recorded in official documents. So there may be lots of police but only half are real police: the rest are sort of pretend ones.

Back to our compound.

If we look at the way the staff organise their territory, it is clearly a proxy village. Behind the main building is the village fire – a TV set. There are about 20 chairs, enough to seat whoever wants to join them. Near the TV is a deep freeze to chill beers and keep food cold. A woman comes in every day to cater for them – making their lunch and doing some laundry. Most of the day, and every evening, the TV is going full blast but not loud enough to prevent conversation. This is carried on as well, but loudly so that no one thinks they are discussing secrets.

I only really knew it was a village when I was awoken at 2 a.m. by the sound of a terrified goat. Someone had obviously got a bargain, and bought it back. But where to keep it? They parked it under my bedroom window and the poor thing cried at the top of its voice. After an hour or so they decided that was obviously not the best place, so it was moved. Since then there have been more. Sometimes they keep them on the grass verge in front, sometimes at the back. In due course the goats meet the final solution, and are duly cut up and divided among the interested parties. Fortunately I’ve never seen that bit, but our neighbours have, and are naturally very upset.

So we have a moral dilemma. We pay a fortune to live here, but I think the staff are just doing things the way they are used to. They get paid next to nothing, and the facilities of this place, including the electricity, the space, the TV and the deep freeze, are all they have to make a difficult life bearable. Do we have the right to complain? What boundaries should there be? Noise levels? Goats? Slaughtering?

But now there is a new wrinkle: speaking in whispers the word goes around. A government VVIP is living on the top floor, and he is the goat lover. Now our chances of changing the rules of the game are almost zero.

It’s Africa: one should enjoy it for just that.