For 5 years in Accra, I lived in a place that cost me $3500 monthly. We had 24 hours electricity and plenty of security guards. The company managing the property didn't think that the security guards would eat during each 12-hour shift.

How did the guards manage each day? I didn't realize it until I kept wondering why I hear a honking noise of a bicycle horn during the day and late at night. A guy hawking food in the neighborhood used that to signal that he was around. He served all the guards in the area.

Our security in the area was dependent on this guy selling food on credit and we didn't know it. He could have poisoned all the guards or at least sedated them but we were living in a bubble. We had diplomats and bank MDs in the complex but our guards ate hawked food.

Those are the types of bubbles where we live in Africa. I now live in a 265 home estate with no provision at all for domestic staff or any other arrangement to assist residents. I caught a gardener once taking pictures of my door and I installed cameras on every window and door.

We have police patrols at night around the perimeter and inside but I keep wondering if it is not much cheaper if we just help the communities around to be more self-sufficient? At the beginning of the pandemic, someone broke into a house to steal TVs. TVs!!!???

The desperation to steal something as large as a TV and try to carry it on your head is worrying.