High Security

If you had magnified the picture that I took of Frank and I in front of the place that we live, you would see that the fencing has very wicked looking barbs at the top to keep intruders from climbing it. There are a lot of variations of this and many properties use tightly looped concertina wire. This is the view out of our front door. It is taken through the bars on our door that lock securely outside of our locked door. Similar bars are on all of the windows. Outside, the entire property, including the owners’ house has either this mason fence that is from seven to eight feet high or the barbed bars shown. Atop either is another three feet or so of electrical fence. In addition to that is a security system that alarms when someone walks near—like us when we are going to our car in the morning. The owner says that he would rather be safe and sorry and I don’t blame him. He has a beautiful wife and four precious children. Our 15 year-old neighbor told us that she had heard that in the states houses weren’t even fenced; that was remarkable to her. Almost every house in the neighborhood is like this, except a few for which the house itself becomes a fortress in the front, but the back is fenced in a similar way. I would have thought with the country’s history that it would be only the affluent that uses such security measures, but even away from the city, very modest homes are surrounded by fencing and concertina. Of course the shantytowns aren’t fenced; buildings there are so dense that it would be impossible to know where to fence if they could. I wonder if such high security is a habit that has persisted from a time when there were riots and bloodshed or if statistics still warrant them. In any case, while we are here we feel securely secure.