the games people play in order to gain favor

In my experience in working with staff in the villages, there is a lot of things said, which are sometimes true and sometimes not. It is hard to determine which is which especially when much of what is said is to make one look good with one's principal whilst stabbing a rival in the back.

One has to be very careful in these circumstances, as many tales are of people deceiving you and stealing from you, and unless one can corroborate such tales, one has to tread carefully before attaching blame and believing the story.

In the most recent instance it is one who is in my sister's employment who is making allegations against people in my employment, and if I repeat that allgation to the alleged culprit, they would know from whom that came and make life difficult for him. If it is totally unfounded, then it is even more of an issue that can blow out of control, where we are not on site to be able to see the wood from the trees and settle the dispute in a fair manner and prevent it getting nasty.

The art of the deal is to accept the statement from the person making the allegation and then just pretend nothing has happened and see if one can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the allegation has any merit. Otherwise it is a pure trouble in the jungle scenario with no way out.

The divide and rule concept worked well for the British as they had enough people within the island who would tell tales on the other, and it is difficult to get total silence from all as there are enough people who will sneak to gain favor. This way one can know everything that goes on and pretend one does not know and be able to come out with the truth when it can be proven or when one gets caught red handed or with his pants down as the expression goes.

While there is no smoke without fire, jealousies are such that bald face lies are now the norm in this game, so that ascertaining the truth prior to reacting become paramount.