We had been warned by travel guides all discouraging 1st
World drivers from renting vehicles in Tanzania. “The pot holes will swallow your car” and “never
assume that other drivers have fully thought through all of the dangerous maneuvers
that they perform when overtaking you on a steep, narrow, winding road” were
typical quotes. But we had bags of
equipment and three of us that needed to get across the country, so the morning
of the 10th found us picking up the keys to a brand new, 6-speed,
diesel powered Land Rover in Dar Es Salaam.
Dahlia, Dad and I loaded our bags in it, made an awkward right hand turn
out into traffic and pulled in behind a truck.
After about 30 minutes during which the only things that moved near us
were street vendors, hawking their cashews, chips, sodas and trinkets we
finally followed some other cars directly into oncoming traffic and wound out
way past the gridlock that had been holding us up. An hour or so out of Dar we encountered the
first of what would be innumerable police checkpoints/extortion
opportunities. We weren’t at all sure
what we had done wrong, but the uniformed officer informed us that he would
happy to accept 50% of our 60,000 shilling ($40 USD) fine in cash on the spot
and would let us go. “All we have is
8,000 shillings,” I lied. “That’s half
of 16,000 shillings” my Dad offered, pretending that we had heard the original fine
incorrectly. After a few uncomfortable
moments the officer took the bills and waved us on begrudgingly. 15 minutes later we were back on the side of
the road, with another one of Tanzania’s finest explaining the fine for our
latest infraction. If we were going to
drive across the entire country we were going to need a new approach. Based on an anecdote I had heard someone once
share, I told the others in the car to follow my lead. We asked for an explanation of what we did
wrong and then insisted on seeing the officer’s supervisor before handing over
any money. “So you refuse to pay the
fine?” the officer asked incredulously. “That
will mean going to court here tomorrow and paying an even larger fine”. “That’s ok, we’ll wait to see your supervisor”
we insisted. He took Dad’s license,
walked across the road and pulled another car over before handing Dad his
license back and silently waving us on in disgust. There are some moments when I know for sure
that I am not in America anymore.
We gradually discovered that almost all checkpoints can be
predicted by headlight flashers or hand gestures from oncoming drivers and
that, as long as we slowed to a crawl (between 30 and 50km/hr) in anticipation
of each, we could usually escape without a confrontation.
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