Every month I pay Adan, our guard, 18,000 Francs ($103) to look after our house. Before he came to work for us, he was a goat herder in the desert. He doesn’t have the proper papers to be here in this country and is considered illegal. This means that every now and then the police come around and attempt to “round up” guards like him (almost every guard in our neighborhood is here illegally). The only way out if he is caught by the police is to pay a few thousand Francs to “forget about it.” These police come around every now and then and all the guards in the neighborhood go into hiding for a few hours.
By looking at his writing skills I don’t think our guard ever went to school. It’s a common story for many people like him here. He can’t even write his name. Above are the signatures from some of the receipts he has signed for his wages. The first time I asked him to sign the receipt he just made a scribbled line. Not believing he couldn’t write, I told him to try again. He was embarrassed. If you look at the first signature to the last one he might be making some progress. These 4 signatures are probably the only things he has written in the past 4 months. He still gets embarrassed when I ask him to sign his receipt. Maybe I should at least teach him how to write his name.
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