The Ugly Side of Life.

This has been a very difficult month for us, and this weekend has been the worst weekend since we’ve been here in Tanzania. Among the many challenges in living here is learning to adjust to having workers—gardeners, guards, housekeepers, etc.—in and around your home every day and night. I think we’re like most people we know (back home) in that we tend to be pretty trusting with people. As Christians, we tend to see people first in positive terms. The idea of looking at everyone you meet as a potential threat or problem is something that we would never think of doing.

Until we arrived here. This morning we discovered that someone had stolen 4 pairs of shoes (the kids’ shoes we had purchased in the States for the them to grown into while they were here since good durable shoes are almost impossible to get), an expensive backpack, a sleeping bag, and two sleeping pads were stolen from our garage while we’ve been at language camp. All of the things had just been unpacked from the shipping container and were in the process of being organized, so there is no doubt that they’re gone. Like everyone else who has workers, our housekeeper has access to our home when we’re not here, so he had access to our garage from the inside of the house. The garage “locks” with metal rods that slide into the holes in the concrete at the top and bottom, but Mark found out that he could open and close the garage from the outside. When he went into the garage from the house this morning, he had to shove a box out of his way that was blocking the door.

We are pretty sure our night guard (hired through a company) is responsible. If you read a couple posts back, you’ll remember that we also had our camera stole from our car. We lock our doors every time we leave the car in our yard, but if I were to get out trying to manage groceries, 3 kids, a barking jumping dog…well, you can imagine that I may not have been 100% perfect. Nights are very noisy here, and although Yasini (our housekeeper) lives onsite, he doesn’t get up and check every noise he hears. And Mark was able to open and close the garage without me hearing it in the house. So there you have it. We contacted the company and they came out with the guard and talked to him and our housekeeper and our gardener. Immediately they wanted to point at our housekeeper with the keys. We listened, they said we should take everyone to the police station and let them sort it out. The concern we have is that we’ve not heard any positive stories about the police here and seriously doubt that they would do a thorough investigation once they know we have a housekeeper in the house. There are also issues with corruption in using the police, too. Later, we heard from our guard (via the housekeeper) that the “word” among Tanzanians is that the company is not terribly reputable and that guard services can often be a handy front for theft.

But it doesn’t guarantee that he stole the things. Or that the housekeeper did. Or the gardener. But someone did. We don’t need a police report, or some type of justice done. We just need people to stop stealing our stuff. Although we do appear (and are) very wealthy to the Tanzanians here, the truth is is that we can’t afford financially to replace the things that were stolen. Besides which, we need to be able to have some modicum of trust for those that we employ at our house.

And there’s the worst part of the whole situation—because this weekend we feel like we’ll never be able to trust any Tanzanians. How can you be friends or have a relationship with someone who appears to be genuine and friendly, and then hits you up for money or steals from you? Cultural differences aside (and the asking for money and things is a cultural difference in the way friendships and money are seen here—something that we are working to understand so we aren’t offended or put out when it happens), we still are left with the feeling that we will have to look at every person we encounter as a potential thief, or someone looking for someone to gain from us. Hire people, work with them, for them, whatever—but never trust them. Is that really what life is going to be like here? If it is, how does anyone stay? Because right this weekend we want to leave, and it’s the first time we’ve felt this way since we’ve been here.

We have told the company that we do not want the guard back. We will have a different guard this week and will look at other guard companies on Monday. As for our housekeeper and gardener—we still don’t know if we should just let everyone go and start over (with people we don’t know and won’t trust now anyway) or what. Our housekeeper is a particularly complicated matter since his whole family lives here and letting him go will cause a terrible disruption to their family, including having to remove a child from school and possibly have a very difficult time getting him into another, as well as loss of income, home, etc. If we could prove something, we’d have no trouble making that decision, but having his family onsite with us is making it difficult to see things objectively.

Tonight, we have padlocks on a closet where we keep our purse, wallet, money, and camcorder. We have padlocks on our garage and on the door from the garage to the house. We have 2 padlocks on our front gate. We have a padlock on our back gate to the back compound. We have a padlock on our workshop and padlocks on each of the rooms in it. We lock our car doors, and have metal gates over the wooden doors in our house. And things are stolen. This, apparently, is life in Tanzania.

This, too, will pass, of course. Things are just things. Things happen to people. Certainly far worse than this has happened to many people. But the deep sense of—I don’t what—disappointment, fear, cynicism, anger, frustration—over how it seems life might be, how it seems people might be, how we go about getting past these feelings—that’s the challenge, I guess. We’ll see how we make out.