Well, it’s happened. The thing we were told would happen within the first month of building. The thing we thought we’d managed to avoid by our tenacious commitment to employing and assisting the local community. We have, it seems, had some building materials stolen by our own workers.
Product missing – cement bags. We don’t yet know how many. It could be 3, it could be at the very most 50. Now that sounds like we’ve been negligent, but not so. It’s more a case of our thieves being a little craftier than we’d anticipated – and thereby sneaking under our accounting methods.
What methods? Well, we lock our cement bags in our shipping container each night – the key of which is kept on Darren’s person. Every day the team of four labourers making the concrete sleepers for the Kesho Leo walkway, use three bags of cement. Daz, Nick, Robbie and Liz are on site all day – and don’t leave for lunch when the labourers do, so nothing goes walking then. And come home time, there’s first a regular pack up and check off as unused cement bags go back to the container each afternoon. Some afternoons there are no cement bags to go back, because they’ve all been used in making the concrete sleepers. Or so we thought. But what if the concreting team of four had joined forces with the site guard in this nifty little scam... Just say that some days, just two bags of cement are used in the moulds. What if, at some point during the day, the third was buried underneath the huge pile of sand that is shovelled into the concrete mix. Then after everyone leaves the site for the afternoon, one of the concreting team returns to the job, is let in by the site guard, digs out the bag of cement and walks off into the setting sun.
It’s a profitable plan. One 50kg bag of cement here costs $13.50. We are paying the locals more than the standard wage – which comes out at $15 each per week. So if they can pull this scam off once a day, once a week even, they’ve doubled their weekly wage.
It’d be nice to report that those involved are definitely spending their money on food, medicine and education for their children and wives. Maybe they are. Some of their behaviours suggest they are spending it on alcohol.
Yes, alcohol abuse is an alive and kicking issue here. This week, in separate incidents to the above, we dismissed two of our guards and one of our newly employed managers for arriving at work inebriated. And I’m talking seriously off their faces. Not that it would make one iota of difference had they been less drunk - we don’t adjust the rules to the degree of intoxication. But, to my Western mind, it’s a spin-out that all three of them, barely unable to walk, figured it best to show up to work in this state, than not show up at all. Is alcoholism so accepted here?
The immediate question fws is expected to answer is: YOU SAID YOU WERE HERE TO HELP THE COMMUNITY. SHOULDN’T YOU THEN ‘HELP’ THESE WORKERS? Sure. Here’s my answer: Yes, we’re here to help the community, absolutely, always, as best we can. And there-in lies the sting: Yes we are here to help the community, as best we can, but right now in these early days, no, we don’t have the manpower to put any newly hired workers we discover to have alcohol problems through a comprehensive program to help them eventually attain sobriety. I’m confident that one day, we will have the ability to do this, but as we stand, we’re too young and small to offer such nurturing. Of course, this is outlined explicitly to every person we hire, as we hire them. The brief sounds a little like this: fws is here for the community, and kesho leo is a home for vulnerable women, their children and orphans – so a lot of those living at kesho have been treated poorly by men, and particularly men with alcohol issues. Soooooo, fws is very passionate about ensuring the men we hire are not just able to do their kesho leo job, but also able to be great role models and father figures to the children, and to be good men that the kesho leo house mamas can trust not to hurt or scare them. Suddenly the significance of having alcoholic night guards and managers takes on a new light, hey? Suddenly, fws is forced to look at its objects – to provide SAFE housing for vulnerable women, their children and orphans. Can we be everything to everybody? One day, let’s hope – that’s kind of our plan, and where we can’t, we can certainly point people in the right direction (which is what we did in this case – accompanying the manager employee to counselling (which he elected to give up after two sessions) and giving phone numbers for the AA meetings in town). Can we be everything to everyone, right now? No way, not even close, speak to the hand
So, where to with our dodgy characters among our good men? Well, firstly, we’ll explain that they’ve simply stolen from themselves. Kesho might be a home to these women and kids but it’s also a community education centre and health clinic…for them and their families. These men have wives and children who get sick (and are administered to poorly by the local clinics) and their kids will grow up wanting the education we offer. The men know this – they must have forgotten. Or does mankind not develop foresight when he lives hand to mouth every day? Take what you can, while you can. You never know what trauma tomorrow may bring…
More immediately though, these men, who we’ve worked alongside and trained for 11 months, will be dismissed from the job – it’s not fair to keep them on when we have 16 other labourers who haven’t been dishonest. However, the real karma kicks in via their fellow workers. This process, purely by circumstance, has already begun. As it so happened, the Friday the hidden cement bag was discovered by Mudi, our assistant manager, Darren and I had taken off at
As you’d imagine Daz is disappointed but I asked him not to be. There are good eggs and dodge eggs everywhere you go and incidents such as these only help us halo the men with integrity and good characters – the men who will make fantastic role models and trustworthy protection for the residents of Kesho Leo. We’re whittling down that list – and it’s looking good.
Beck
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