law enforcement? or assbackwards corruption.

Hey kids-

I know it has been a while for the blog posts, and for that I am sorry, dealing with limited internet connections these days for blog-posting purposes.

So here we are, mid-June, a year into this insane and wonderful adventure - I am currently sitting in the Peace Corps office here in the capital city of Maputo. I had a lovely few days with some PCV friends and got to see Sota, as he was gracious enough to let me stay at his home. I am departing from the office today directly to the airport, where I will catch a plane to Johannesburg, South Africa (about a 2 hour flight), meet up with my Dad, spend the night there with him, and then onto Livingstone, Zambia in the morning to check out Victoria Falls! I have an exciting few days ahead of me, and will be trying to capture as many moments on camera, and remember to write them all down.

Ok, with that said, I suppose I should explain the title of this blog….

My “vacation” started on Thursday the 6^th, after work was over. My South African friends who were living in Quissico during my first few months, came back for a visit/to get some things, so I was lucky enough to spend some time with them. We went up to Inharrime to have dinner with Jasmin and Veronica, getting stopped by police along the way, yes we were speeding a bit (maybe 8km of the limit) but of course the office only saw white faces, which could only possibly mean “$$$” right? Luckily I was able to use my combination of; white girl with blue eyes, Portuguese skills, and volunteer title – to talk us out of paying the ticket. It was still a very big hassle, and slightly stressful at one point when the officer was threatening to take away our car. Moral of the story, smooth talking officers works when you are in a rural area means you don’t have to pay the made-up fine.

The next day, the three of us headed to Maputo. I personally was thrilled- a free ride down to the capital city with two friends, a seat and seatbelt all to my very own, and a hassle-free way to transport Lua?! I was on-board!! We started off at 6am, gassed up, with hard-boiled egg sandies all ready and waiting. We made it  to Chidenguele – the first town within the Gaza province, where I deposited Lua with my good friend Yuri for the week or so that I will be out of country. My baby girl is off at summer camp! I even packed her a bag of food, meds, and some treats- oh, and of course her Steeler’s leash. She has been doing well from what I know, Yuri keeps me pretty well informed, and I am eternally grateful to have such a generous friend.

So- we were finally on our way, only open road, and good tunes on the horizon…. Or so we thought. Our day was interrupted not once, not twice, not even three times – but FOUR times by the police. We were pulled over for all sorts of “valid reasons”, they thought we were in the country illegally, we couldn’t drive with two people in the back seat, we didn’t have proper car identification (though we did). Each time we were stopped, the reasons became more ridiculous, the fines higher priced, and the officers harder to argue/sweet talk with. Luckily we only had to pay a total of 500mtz for the “fines”, which went straight into the police officers pockets. Cool.

That was Friday, during the day. Once in Maputo, we went for a beer/met up with other friends in town. That night we decided to go out to a local club, have some drinks and some dancing, ya know, live it up in the big city. (side note, I was completely out of place at the club we went to) Again, we were stopped along the way to, and from by police. No fines were paid, but just the act of being pulled over, questioned, showing identification, and talking our way out of paying a fine or bribe is exhausting and downright annoying.

Total police interaction thus far on my “vacation” = 7 times

The next day, we did some breakfasting, some movie watching, and some general hanging-out, to help alleviate the lovely side-effects of having too much fun the night before. Sota, Cameron and I were pulled over by the police during the afternoon, after going grocery shopping because (get this) my arm was hanging out the window. . . . . never mind the over-packed chapa that just rolled by with a man literally hanging out of the door – but my elbow hanging out of an open window while I am using my seatbelt in a personal car? Unacceptable. (I hope you are all shaking your head at the ridiculousness of it all) We met up with some other volunteers who were in town later that afternoon/evening, and decided that it was round 2 for a night on the town. . . its what you do in the big city right?

Picture this, 4 white Peace Corps volunteers (reasonably sober) in a taxi heading back to our places of residence for the night – pretty par for the course right? That’s what we thought too. . . until we were pulled over by a big police truck, lights flashing and everything. Now, we were in a semi-shady area of town, and the police truck had been following us for a while, but the taxi driver was following all of the traffic laws, and there should have been no reason to pull us over.

…but that’s exactly what happened.

Sitting on the side of the road, in a dark and sketchy part of town we were all a smidge nervous. Our fears weren’t helped when the three menwho got out of the car were dressed in civilian clothing, and not the standard police officer uniform, and we noticed that there was a woman, also in civilian dress, sitting in the back seat of the police truck. Three men approached the taxi, and demanded to see identification. So we demanded right back. Not one of them had a legitimate identification card to signify that they were police. We began to urge the taxi driver to just pull away, these men were just trying to create problems, and we were all a bit afraid that it could turn into a very serious situation. Our driver was resistant to this idea, I am not entirely sure why, but after having about 3 to 4 minutes of pure terror with these men walking around our car, we got out our Peace Corps identification cards (not our passports) and told the men that if there was any issue, to take it up with the United States embassy… that shut them up quickly.

Pulling away, we all breathed a veryyyy deep sigh of relief. Who knows what could have happened. Thankfully we all speak Portuguese, understand ways to approach these types of situations, and how to handle them. We immediately told our safety and security coordinator for Peace Corps Mozambique, and hopefully volunteers will never have to go through this type of thing again.

The cherry on the sundae?

Once we got out of the taxi, a friend and I met up with Sota, and were stopped twice more on the way back to his home. At this point, I was so fed up with the police in this country that I was literally fuming at the ears. Sota would just say over and over again that because he is an employee of the Japanese Embassy here in Maputo, the police should just send whatever ticket/fine to the embassy and they will take care of it there. Of course, because they had no reason whatsoever to pull us over, aside from getting bribe $, they let us go on our way.

Police interaction – 11 times.

I am baffled, truly . . .just baffled.



To conclude this interesting start to my vacation, Cameron and I had a lazy evening at Sota’s house last night, after walking all through town yesterday. Movies, mac and cheese, and some wine. . I can’t think of a better way to unwind from a fun, yet stressful weekend. She left this morning for Inhambane City, and I will be on my way to the airport in a few short hours.

More tales of adventures and craziness to come.

Stay tuned.