Africa! The Guards, Robbery, and Instant Justice

     I had befriended our guards, and regularly sat around and talked to them at the gate, before they started their nightly rounds. The women missionaries, they said, offended them because they never came out and visited them like I did. I told them it was a cultural thing.  In America, a  lone woman just does not normally go out in the dark and sit around with a group of strange men. They laughed at that.

     One asked me if there were people like him in America.
   . "Yes, many."
     "Well, how did they get there?" I explained to them they would not like to get there the way they did. I told the whole story, and I had to start way back.

     Well, it was way after dark, and we all knew they should be patrolling now, but I had one more story to tell them, and they listened eagerly. Suddenly, right in the middle of my story, I realized they were no longer listening to me. They were staring off down the road toward the middle of the camp. I stared also, but could hear or see nothing. Fully three minutes later, I began to hear footsteps coming up the path. I looked around at the guys, but they were just gone. Every one of them had melted off into the darkness, with nary a sound. Turned out, Doug, their boss, was coming. They must have heard him when he came out his door. I think we have also lost our "night hearing."

     Our Rafiki, we found out, was the only one of  ten that had not been broken into. Neutralize the guards, then rob everyone. In addition to the high rock wall, which the others did not have, there was a security service that could be called, if there was time. It consisted of a truck load of big men with big sticks. Gun use was rare. Usually, only the military and the police had guns. Yeen Lan said she could have gotten guns for the guards, and could have had broken glass embedded on top of  the wall, as most rock compounds in Nairobi had. But she felt guns and glass was just in violation of what we were about.

     She did allow plants to be planted inside the wall, with long sharp spikes on top. Jumping off the wall inside in the dark could be a very painful experience. The houses were virtually burgler proof, complete with panic buttons.

     The rock wall was possible because Rafiki sat in the middle of a rock quarry. Workers used very heavy, long pieces of rebar, sharpened on the end, to drill blasting holes into the rock. Men punching holes in the rocks could last at that job about four years before being totally broken down. Life expectancy was in the 40's. It totally amazed our kids that a man as old as me, probably the oldest person they knew, could still run. Even play Basketball.

     Police often use instant justice. If they pretty well had a robbery pinned on someone, a bullet in the head greatly speeded up the wheels of justice.

     I got to noticing during the afternoon play period that most of the kid's soccer balls and basketballs they were playing with were partially deflated. I dug around at school until I found a pump and inflation needle, and headed out into the masses of kids. I started pumping up balls, and the more I pumped up, the more balls they were showing up with. I think they were running to the houses and digging them out from everywhere. At long last, completely exhausted, I pumped the last pump on the last ball. Within minutes, they started showing up for a re-pump. Then I realized. Many of the trees in the compound were thorn trees, and almost every ball had a hole in it.

     Barbara found three bottles of bubbles in an old chest in our guest house, and She took them out to where the kids were. I've just got to tell this story in Barbara's own words -

     "Oh my goodness! I was more popular than a rock star! It really was fun but somewhat taxing. I got my reward when a little girl named Susan laughed at the bubbles. It made my heart soar. Susan's mother was killed by her father when she was in her mother's arms. She had been at Rafiki just more than a year now, and she had not smiled once that first year. To see her beautiful face light up was such a treasure!"

     We were contacted  by three women we went on Safari with and invited to dinner at the home of the UN attached lady who lives across town. They were all very nice women, but we had to turn down the offer because it would have been too complicated.

     The gate here is locked at night, and the guards does not have a key. One of the missionaries has it at his house. The director really didn't want us to go, but suggested that if we did, we should hire a security company to take us, wait for us, and bring us back. The missionary with the keys would need to be waiting at the gate when the security company arrived, and open the gate only on the signal from the car, so that it never stopped at the gate. Most robberies occur when a car stops at a gate. That all seemed like a bit much to just go to dinner. Besides, we hated to disappoint the kids at the supper table.

     Doug had been hijacked once when stopping at the gate. These particular robbers had a gun, and the gate guards didn't. They drove him around awhile, took all his stuff. Trying to decide what to do with him, One robber asked him, "What are you doing in Africa?"
     Doug told him he was a missionary, and about his work.
     The robber said, "That's a very nice thing for you to do."
  "Then why are you robbing me?"
 "The need is very great." They finally let him go, minus the car and all his stuff.