It was about 4:30 when I received one text message on my phone. I don't get a lot of phone calls or messges so it was a fairly exciting event. (That statement alone may give a more definitive perspective of Congo than anything else I could write in this blog.)
It was a forwarded message. Unlike FWD: emails, forwarded messages are usually important. They come from the US Embassy. Who was advising Amcits to avoid Ave Justice from Mandela Circle to Lukusa. Police are stopping cars and looking for money.
The equivalent of flashing your lights at oncoming traffic I suppose. Watch out around the bend...
I did have my first experience of being pilfered for money. It didn't go terribly, though I wonder how the outcome would have differed were I alone. I hate the whole feeling of being bullied and can be a bit more stubborn about participating. Just when I was thinking how much fun we three American women were having collecting our weekly groceries, a slightly soaked policeman motioned me to the side. I thought he was directing me around some kind of large hole in the road. I was truly confused. It finally hit me that he wanted me to pull over and I just let the confusion take control. Sometimes it helps.
Being pulled over in Africa is not quite like being pulled over in the US. The first question my friend asked me, and even I myself for a foolish minute, was why? Because he wanted to is the obvious answer. Because I am a white woman driving. Because he can. Because it was raining and he was wet and miserable, wishing to be anywhere but on that street directing traffic. Take your pick.
My first instinct was just to keep driving. I really wanted to. After all, there are no electronic gadgets in which he could track my plate or anything like that. And he was on foot. Then again, I was in a car. I needed to consider the traffic situation in downtown Kinshasa. He could easily overtake me before the next intersection.
After that first decision, it was a series of many more, all fighting my natural inclination to be an upstanding citizen and obey. He motioned for me to roll down the window. I ignored him. It was difficult to stop my hand, but all the while my head was commanding my body in contrary ways.
He asked for my license. I didn't have one. A good thing in this case, I think, since I haven't yet switched over to Congolese. A New York license would surely have incensed him.
In the end, he asked for twenty bucks -we gave him a thousand francs (maybe a dollar fifty.) It hardly seemed worth it, to him or us.
But the latest embassy meetings have been suggesting the financial situation is getting dire, as everywhere. The police and military haven't been paid in months (or was it a year?) The gov't is thinking of just giving them a bunch of thousand franc bills to keep them happy. It seems last time they did that, the shopkeepers wouldn't accept any of it because the bills had no value. It seems last time there was some general looting and rioting over the whole affair.
So they're considering doing it again. Apparently it was 1 message not received.
