So, who guards the guards?

A fiend recently commented on a dialogue that he had had with his guard/gardener. When the guard asked him why he didn’t have a guard, and/or a way to lock his gate, he replied that where he came from (America) there is a police system in place, and functioning, that discourages random break-ins and such intrusions and that the system is generally respected. This was unheard of by the guard. Although, the Malawi police are generally thought to be effective and well regarded.

The sad thing is that this general feeling in Malawi is constantly perpetuated by the fact that security companies providing guard services are rampant throughout Malawi. The vast majority of houses have massive brick fences around them topped with barbed wire and glass shards. Even last night, at our house, our guard came to the door and asked us to place a padlock onto the outside door gate. My question: why do we need a lock if we have a guard? Why do we pay for guard services? I didn’t ask it, just thought it.

Another story recently shared was that of an azungu (white) couple who locked their keys in the house. After explaining the problem to the guard, it was but a matter of a few minutes that the guard showed them how to get a long stick, reach into the house, across the room, and secure the keys from where they had been left.

It has been widely mentioned that the guards are the ones who typically do the breaking in and stealing. If caught and questioned, the general response is that they do it because they get paid so little. So, I guess, they assume it is a given and accepted “right” of theirs to steal? A guard in Malawi gets around K5000-6000 (kwacha) per month, which equates to about $40, slightly below what we understand the average wage to be about $500-600/year. These security guards are at the bottom of the world's pay scale. With a daily wage that is much less than a cup of coffee in the US or Europe, their total pay also includes allowances for housing. These guards typically work for 60 hours a week, and yet barely surpass the $1 per day per person established by the World Bank as the measure for "extreme poverty". (Once families are taken into account, the income per person falls far short of even extreme poverty.) Adding further insult, they work for 12 hours a day and are paid for only 10 under the G4S (employing company) policy to reduce pay by half for overtime hours. Most of the workers can't afford to take any transportation and therefore many walk an hour and a half each way to work. Families can't afford school books for their kids and they can't afford to put basic foodstuff on the table. A "living wage" is not even within reach.

But, don’t get me wrong, I personally feel fairly safe while negotiating my way around. It is just not advisable to do so after dark.