Well it’s not every day you almost get arrested….
Mr Jake went out early with Cathy for a day of music teaching at West Nairobi School. (They don’t ‘collect’ you or ‘pick you up’ here, they just ‘pick’ you. Hilarious.)
We got going and made it through the ridiculous traffic to meet Simon (our teacher) & Clare (PA at Ghetto Classics) at our designated meeting spot – the National Theatre of Kenya. (Mainly because it has convenient city parking.)
We were collectively on a mission to find the best deal on 12 good quality keyboards for our new classroom at Korogocho. Our AMS families have generously donated funds for this bit of our venture and we wanted to spend the money as wisely as possible. Sounds simple enough right?
This was our first trip to down-town Nairobi City. We have driven through before but not stopped. It’s a no-go-zone generally for us because the police will pull ‘mzungu’ (whities!) up for anything and everything. Oh the corruption….
We met them without any trouble (incredible views of Kibera slum along the expressway!) and set off on foot to 3 different music stores. Walking through the true centre of town was a bit like walking in NYC (as Zac pointed out) – people and cars everywhere and you just need to be confident and go for it! We were with locals and Simon really is huge so we felt totally safe.
After visiting all 3 stores we agreed that the best value was at ‘Credible Sounds’ (!!) Where we could get really good Yamahas for maybe about what we would have paid at home. (By the time you pay taxes here, everything is super expensive.)
So we sent Zac and Simon back to the store while Bill, Tilly, Clare & I collected the car, thinking that would save some time to pick up the keyboards.
Silly us!! Not only did we get stuck in a jam for about half an hour but as we approached the store we followed everyone though the red light (all traffic lights are completely ignored here – chaos rules) and got pulled over by the ‘council traffic police’ for running a red light.
The female officer told Clare to move into the back row to allow for 2 police officers to sit in our car. ‘I will now commandeer the vehicle’ (no kidding). She and her fellow male officer both got in the back seat and told us to drive a little further and pull over. She explained that we had run a red light and were therefore charged with an offense…. (Insert your best African accent here:)
‘This is a crime and the car will be impounded and the driver arrested. We will take you to city court where you will be fined. It is 10 thousand shillings for the car to be released and after the court hearing, another 5 thousand for the driver.’ (That’s about $220 – but the money was the least of our worries… This can take forever and can accuse you of anything!)
Bill spoke a little about how we were actually following everyone else through the intersection, how we have been told to go with the flow of traffic, how we have driven here for a week without incident etc – but to no avail.
I asked her to give us a chance, explaining that we are here to help and we have done our best to be good visitors and obey their rules.
She said ‘OK I am giving you a chance. I will not charge the driver. You must only pay the fine for the car’.
Right. So we were instructed to drive (no idea where we were going) and off we went. After taking a few wrong turns (their directions were horrible) we got stuck in traffic again. Clare told them that if they were going to charge us, they would not get one shilling in the car. They needed to take us to the office or there would be no payment at all. (Of course this makes perfect sense but I was ready to pay them off!)
Clare took the opportunity to call Elizabeth from the back seat and basically gave her a loud serve about how unfair everything was and how we were doing good work here and trying to help and how the officials were doing the wrong thing. This was half English, half Swahili but I got the gist of it!
When she hung up, there were a few quiet words in Swahili between the officers and Clare. We found out later that they were telling her that she was making their job harder and should be supporting the funds from foreigners coming into the community. She told them what we are here for and that this was ruining our trip. (Bless her socks!)
Next thing, the female officer tapped me on the arm and said ‘Ma’am I am going to give you the chance that you asked for.’ When I asked what she meant she said ‘I will let you go’. I clarified that this meant no fine, they would get out of our car and leave us alone. She nodded each time.
Then I said ‘So we don’t need to pay anything?’ And she replied ‘No, unless you….’ (Big gesture of appreciation in her direction)!! Oh the corruption…
Bill was suddenly all appreciative and thankful and patting her arm and kissing her hand – which apparently is exactly is what is required. ‘Thank you so much! We really appreciate your kindness. We would like to buy you lunch!’ And asked me to give her a thousand shilling note (about $14).
They got out of the car and that was that.
Tilly says ‘oh far out I thought you meant we were taking them out for lunch!!!’ Hahaha…
Of course, our Kenyan friends were apologetic and mortified – but it’s also just how things are here.
Finally back to the store to meet Zac and Simon.
The next 2 hours or so were spent waiting for a parking spot for the delivery van to get our keyboards from the store house into the store, waiting as Bill drove round the block at least 6 times looking for a parking spot (Simon went with him as Clare was sure he would get arrested again!), trips to various ATMs to get the required cash as they reckon the credit card would take 45 days to clear (yeah right!), watching as they mis-counted our money and came up short twice before admitting it was all there and generally trying not to go nuts!
While we waited, Clare and I helped the staff check every one of our 12 Keyboards and every power adaptor. I wasn’t too concerned about this but Simon was pretty certain it was a good idea. It was all a bit of a circus.
We eventually made it back to our car, fighting off young guys hassling for money. Tilly and I were both very good at saying ‘No go away!’
The whole process only took about 7 hours!
We were hungry and ‘had it’ as we made our way back through the city to our home in Karen.
