In Africa, many people have a house protected by a
security guard. As a foreigner, I also want to live in a well-secured house, so
also a security guard should be part of this! Some security guards are very good;
others are more like a joke. I experienced some kind of funny guards, in some
cases you can doubt how much security they bring!
In Nigeria for example, at some point we had a security
guard who was somewhere in his eighties. We always said that if something would
happen, we would be the ones to protect him instead of him protecting us… He
didn’t speak one word of English, what is of course very useful in a house with
two foreigners who don’t speak Yoruba. The most interesting about this man was
that he was scared about our watchdog.
We also had a guard there who managed to lose the key of
our gate. So, if he would go out, he would close it from the outside in such
way that we couldn’t leave, but anyone coming from outside could simply open
the gate. Very secure indeed!
Here in Yaoundé I first had a deaf guard. He was very
friendly, but of course anyone could just enter if he would face the other
direction. He was replaced by someone who is socially not so strong. He now
travelled and his junior brother is taking over. This guy is (hopefully) not
scared of dogs, but he is definitely scared of people! He doesn’t look at you
when you greet him, and instead of bonjour he says; eeh! No idea what he will
do if there is a serious issue.
My guards are maybe not always the best. But it can
always get worse. I know of someone whose guard helped some robbers to break in
to the house. At some point the robbers entered the bedroom where he was
sleeping with his wife. I prefer someone being scared of people over someone
like that!
