After a day of shopping and sight seeing, the two Steen clans went out for dinner. There are many options on the Oyster Bay peninsula, and we found a nice Lebanese restaurant called Epid'or. Here, Bob and Sharri got to experience another Tanzanian tradition: incredibly slow service! After ordering food, it is customary to wait quite a long time. Plus, our motto in Africa is always "It Won't Work the First Time." This applies to everything, so that includes food orders. The grown ups got their food and it was really good! Except that once it came after the 20 min - 1/2 hour wait, the waitress admitted that she forgot to place the order for the kid's food. You know, the order that was right there on the same piece of paper.
Another fun Tanzanian thing we've found is that when a restaurant realized they've made a mistake like this, it does NOT mean they are going to rush to fix the problem. One might think that 3 orders of pasta would rush right out in a few minutes, but no. I think they started heating the water a few minutes after they got back to the kitchen. But ok, it was good food, and we were in no real rush. I think the visitors were really starting to fade, though, so I wanted to get them back to their hotel.
I did some Google mapping. The fastest way to get them to the hotel would be weaving through some city streets I wasn't familiar with. But I noticed that if I just went further down the street that went along the ocean, I could just make a single right turn and could get to the hotel easily! It looked rather easy. I'd never driven in that area, but it didn't look like a big deal.
The sun was setting after dinner, which meant that the dark would be quickly approaching. Man, it gets dark here quickly.
The name of the road that goes along the ocean used to be called "Ocean Road" but was recently renamed Barack Obama Road. It was pretty cool, as it was literally right on the beach. Ocean, 20 feet of beach, and then tarmac. Except with no street lights, it was a bit narrow and hard to drive on. We passed a right turn that Steph thought we should take. Nah, that was the left if we wanted to weave through downtown. I had a better plan!
200 feet later, some military men were on the side of the road, and they waved to me to pull me over. Police normally wear all-white uniforms. These were military-khaki, and of course a few of the men were armed with automatic guns. (None of this is abnormal, but can be pretty striking). They have us pull over onto the sand and turn off our headlights. Then a guy comes over and explains to me that this road is closed, and that no traffic is allowed on it. Apparently, the president lives a little further down, and it's a matter of national security to keep people off it. And he said there was a sign that said the road was closed.
(Talking to fellow missionaries later, this road does have the Preisident's house, and it is often closed after 6pm (this was maybe 6:30). But only "kind of". There is no sign, I know that for sure. It's just something one is supposed to know.)
I pretty much knew right away what was happening...I was going to have to "bribe" my way out of this. I wasn't sure if I did something officially wrong or not, but I felt that my options were going to be to follow the guy's instructions, or to pay a bribe. One thing to do when you are pulled over is to demand a receipt. I did that a few times. The guy (actually, this was now a second guy) knew that I knew what was going on. He would laugh and say "we have no receipts here!"
The problem was, he told me that since I was in the wrong place, I needed to go to the President's office and they would open a case against me, and then I would have to go to court. Again, I knew this was a pretty ludicrous idea, but I really didn't know for sure if there was some kernel of truth. Maybe I did miss a sign and maybe I should be in trouble for where I was. If I knew for certain, I could have pressed harder more confidently. But he had me doubting myself just enough. Of course, there was no sign. I suggested a few times that they show me sign, or show me the law that says I can't be there. They just laughed.
I kept suggesting that he let me go, and that I sure would go ahead and show up at court later. He had yet to ask my name, ask for ID, ask for car registration...nothing. (That was the explanation I didn't want to have...why I had only my American ID on me and that the school van was not registered to me. So I was overly nervous about that!)
I talked a lot about living here in Dar, and how I just simply needed to get my visiting family to the hotel so that they could sleep for the night. He kept saying things like "how are we going to resolve this situation?" and I was supposed to offer him money. Instead I kept suggesting that he let me go, bring the family to the hotel, and then I could take care of any problems.
I did a few things wrong. One, I kept meaning to say this (I learned the trick on Uganda mission trips) to emphasize that we were missionaries working hard to help the country. I implied it but didn't say it outright. Of course, that helped us in the past get out of tickets that were legitimate offenses. This was different.
The main thing to do (I realized later when I was less intimidated) was to insist more on the receipt, and to call the big bluff. Yes, let's go to the President's office right now, and you can write me the receipt. To insist that my mission organization needs receipts because they track my spending. That will often finally shut them up, when they think you cannot actually spend the money without tracking it. The other thing is, you need to have some patience. I had enough for about 20 minutes, but then I was done. I wanted out.
We ended up talking about America, and he was proud that we were on Barack Obama road. I told him I knew that, and that we were glad Africans like Barack Obama. The Obama conversation really got him laughing and in a good mood. So he finally said that 50000tsh (about $30USD) would take care of the situation. He made a lot of grand statements about how I really should be paying a huge amount, and having national security look after me, and so on, but he decided I was a good man, that Obama was cool, and I could just pay him.
Well, bribing police officers is another moral line I really wanted to refuse to cross. I want to stand against corruption. I want things to be clearly right or wrong, and then I can clearly do the right thing. The thing is, I didn't realize that "bribe" really meant "extortion." I wasn't bribing a police officer so that I wouldn't get a ticket. I was basically being held up by the military so that they could get some of my mzungu money. And it worked. I was more concerned with getting the family out of there. I was worried about the possible other actions that would happen if I refused to pay. I was calm and not too scared, but I also didn't see another way out.
So I am disappointed in myself, but also angry that this kind of thing can happen, and there isn't anything that can be done about it. We spent $30 on an interesting experience and a story, but it's a sad story. The world isn't right. It's broken a lot worse than this in many other places within just a few kilometers of us, but this is an example of the systems that are just not right yet in Tanzania. It's a shame.
