Guard Duty...

I had to do something Thursday. It is one of the hardest things I've done since living in this country. I had to release a guard. The way houses are set up here is that everything is inside its own compound. It makes no difference whether you are in the city or the countryside each house or sometimes a families' grouping of houses is inside its own gate.

My gate is green. Around the top of the fence is razor wire. In the states we would assume someone really rich lives in my house, or else it is a small prison. Each house always has a person standing guard. We have three. They switch off so that one of them is always here.

Very little major crime happens in this country. However there is some theft. In the local logic, if you have something that you don't protect you must not care if someone takes it. At our learning center the phone had no lock on it. One month someone made repeated calls to Austria. We must not have minded if they made calls or we would have locked the dial pad...it is now locked. The same logic applies to a car or my house. If I don't have a guard I must not care if someone breaks in. But I do care so I have guards.

Thursday I had to release one. He had only been here a couple months. He was a great guy, but he couldn't make the cut. For a while I thought he was lazy or a bit dumb. Over time I began to think maybe he couldn't hear. We would knock on the gate and he would never come answer. One day I came out the front door and he wasnt more than fifteen feet away. As I drew within five I said hello; he didn't respond. Finally when I slammed the car door I got his attention.

The problems continued and were compounded by a lie he told the guards and his inability to help our house worker. Eventually we decidedwe would have to let him go. I have limited language so I started the conversation and then had an advisor finish it. I thought the guy was gonna cry; I thought I was gonna cry.

It is tough to live in a place of such poverty. Standing before me was a young guy who wanted a job. He was a good guy, but he couldn't protect the house. I released him from his work and gave him a gift as new years is approaching. I asked him to call me sometime and we would get tea or coffee. I'm not sure I'll ever hear from him. I think I crushed him. I crushed me. I'm still not sure what the right thing to do was.