Idriss, my driver, and I were sitting in the Land Cruiser under a tree waiting for some trucks to arrive. We were showing each other hand signs from our cultures, I was asking him about thumbs up - which means 'one love' here - and the finger/thumb OK circle - which doesn't mean anything here. After I taught him the middle finger and he taught me a couple of things, the conversation turned to him getting his phone stolen from his car while he was driving in Freetown. He was going slow in traffic and someone reached in, grabbed the phone, and ran. That was a big deal to him. I told him how it is common in the US, and when you park your car you have to hide your valuables or someone will break the window and steal them. He was dumbfounded. He asked me to repeat it to make sure he heard it right.
Then he asked: Why are there tifmen (thieves) in America? Aren't there plenty of jobs? There are no jobs here. An African man steals to feed his family. Why do they steal in America?
I really didn't have a good answer, except to say the thieves are lazy and don't want to work hard at the plenty of jobs available. My point was brought home later when I saw the crew out mowing the grass around the runway at the airport. They mow the grass with machetes, not power tools. They work from first light to about 11:00, when it gets too hot. They are in a line and slowly advance, swinging their machetes high above their head as they stoop to get a low cut. I'm sure the mowing crew worker is feeding his family in a way I can't imagine having to do.
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