I need to kill the security guard...

There's a security guard at my bulding that I pass almost every day, and I greet him sometimes. Or I must have done something to make him think i'm nice! As i'm walking into the building today I get greeted by a guy I don't recognise (not a normal occurance in Rwanda so I'm wondering what he wants). Immediately he says he's heard i'm running a project and I might need staff and his wife is unemployed. Not for him, you see, for his wife and she needs work cause she's unemployed (her and a large proportion of the population). I told him we were all booked up, thanks. But he kept insisting and even going as far as to say that it was like a favour he was asking from me (hello? A personal favor from a guy I've never met?).

At this point I decide to get Rwandan on his ass. I ask him where he works - he is a KIST technican, so I probably dont know him, as opposed the to many other people who approach me and seem to know me, and who I have met but can't remember - then I ask him how he knows about my project. He tells me the security guard told him!!

Now about two weeks back, I was giving out questionnaires to 26 surveyors and the only meeting room in the building was occupied. My office is too small for that kind of logistics so I had to improvise and use the space under the stairs near the student toilets. I remember the guard asking what was going on and, thinking it was a security concern, I told him I was runing a survey and these were my surveyors. I had made the fatal mistake of volunteering information and now I was paying for it.

Sometime later in the day, we did some planning for the second week of the survey and it transpired that we needed extra staff to cover all schools remaining. I turned to Albert who had helped me recruit the first batch. One guy he sent looked a bit, well, rural. Smelt that way too. He said he'd done a HIV survey at some point but seemed extremely shy and nervous. I began to wonder how he would talk up to school directors. I gave him the contract to sign, and told him "Print your name in capitals on this page, signature and date on this page" (its a two page contract). He hesistated and his hand was shaking when he took the pen, it hovered over the page in an ominous fashion before he began to sign where he should print. Not a good sign, I thought, two clear directions and he has fucked it up. Maybe not the brightest (or the cleanest).

The clinch came when it transpired he didn't have a phone. We said we needed him to have one and it gave me the excuse I needed not to give him a contract. He went away dejected looking, meanwhile I was relieved. He returned some minutes later saying he could get a phone, but we still said no. Then he tried a different tack, claiming what was he to do, he was poor and needed work.

God that pissed me off, was he looking for a job or begging on the street?

I told him that a lot of people were poor and that we were sorry he wasn't right for the job. Then, a thought struck me....how did he know Albert? He said he didn't but that he heard about the job from his brother - the security guard!