Kick-off

Many Norwegians who live in towns have burglar alarms. What other kind of things can you do to make
your home safe? Make a list. Then listen to Jonathan talking about his house in Nairobi, Kenya.

askari – vakt (swahili)

So I guess th-, there are really good things about living in Kenya but then also erm … there’s other things that we had to think about … erm … especially with security … Erm … so we had electric fences and razor wire and a hired guard, an askari, who would stay up all night and guard the property. Erm … We had lots of dogs, partly for, erm … just, partly because we like dogs, but also for protection. Erm, we had bars on our windows, we had, erm, metal plating on our doors inside the house and then we had … erm, sort of, almost like prison … prison gates, locking off where we slept from the rest of the house in case, erm, anyone did try to break in. Erm … yeah … We had our dogs poisoned by people working for the neighbours in preparation for a robbery, cause you’ve got to … if you poison the dogs then it’s less likely that you’ll be heard coming. Erm … yep, my, my parents had a, a panic button to press if, erm … they had er, an attempted robbery, which would call in armed guards as well. So living in a big city, like Nairobi … erm … had its problems as well.

Yeah, er, we weren’t, we weren’t, erm, amazingly rich, we’re sort of just, your average middle-class family, but I suppose … in Africa, where there is that massive divide between th-, the very, very poor and those who, who have money … erm … that did make you a target.

Crossroads

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