Family Drama & Highway Robbery

A busy couple of weeks. We've become progressively more involved with helping two families, and, as with all families, drama abounds. We're dealing with a couple of kids who don't want to go to school and prefer to play hooky all day, a couple of sick kids, a sick and probably dying mother of one child, and none of them have enough to eat, so we're trying to keep them all fed as well. Numerous mini-dramas and family scenes, and ferrying to and from hospitals and schools, and even a midnight rescue (really) have played out all week. I know I signed up to help the people of Swaziland when I came over here, I just didn't anticipate that it would get so personal so quickly. I could write several blog entries about all that we've been through in the past week, but I don't have the energy to relive it all so soon, so instead I'll fill you in on our adventure from last weekend....

We've been wanting to visit Mozambique ever since we got here. We live only thirty minutes from the border, and from there it's only an hour and a half to Maputo, the capitol city of Mozambique, situated right on the Indian Ocean. Mozambique is supposed to have some of the world's greatest beaches, so we were eager to spend some time relaxing in the sun after all the week's dramas. On Saturday morning, we picked up another volunteer at the hospital -- Dave, a medical student from Australia -- and the three of us headed to Mozambique.

We'd been warned that the Mozambique police sometimes set up road-blocks and stopped drivers on trumped up charges in order to extort money, but our drive to Maputo was uneventful. I enjoyed the almost immediate change of atmosphere from land-locked, Anglophone Swaziland, to the more laid-back, tropical, and Portuguese-influenced feel of Mozambique. When we got to Maputo, it was exactly what I expected a recently war-torn, formerly communist, formerly Portuguese colonial city of three million to be: run-down, chaotic, slightly scary, and strangely intruiging. We found the "good" part of town recommended in our guide book and stopped for a great lunch of fresh prawns and cold caiparinhas. We sat over our al fresco lunch for a long time, enjoying the warm sun and ocean breezes. As we sat there, I thought to myself how much I enjoyed being back in a big city, and how I prefered the easy rhythms of Latin cultures to the more buttoned-down Northern European ethos.

By the time we left the restaurant it was nearly 4 p.m. At lunch we'd decided that since it was getting late in the day, we'd simply look for a small beach resort to spend the night and enjoy a full day at the beach on Sunday. We weren't certain how to get out of town and find the beach areas. We were driving down Mao Tse-Tung Blvd., when we saw a sign for "beaches" pointing in the opposite direction we were headed. Scott was driving and he made a quick U-turn at the next light. I was sitting in the front passenger seat with my head buried in the guide book, so I didn't realize at first that Scott was pulling over to the curb. I looked up to see a policemen armed with a large rifle approaching the car.

At first he seemed fairly professional. He asked for Scott's driver's license and asked him if he knew he'd made an illegal U-turn. Scott said he hadn't seen any signs against making a U-turn, which turned out to be the wrong answer. The policeman asked if we were questioning his knowledge of driving laws in Mozambique and took a more belligerent attitude. He kept Scott's license and waved us down the street to where a small group of his fellow policemen were standing. We pulled over as directed, and the original policeman plus one of his comrades began interrogating us on what we were doing in Maputo. We explained that we are volunteers working in Swaziland, but that didn't seem to impress them at all. They kept saying that we'd done "a bad thing" and that we'd have to pay a steep fine for it.

We all knew what was going on, and I knew we'd have to end up paying our way out of the situation sooner or later. Scott, however, has a perhaps more finely tuned sense of justice and injustice than I do, and he continued to insist that there was no sign forbidding U-turns. I kept trying to whisper to him under my breath to just apologize for the "bad thing" we'd done and to get to the financial bargaining so that we could get out of the situation as soon as possible. But the back and forth between Scott and the cops continued for several minutes.

We'd read in the guide book, and heard from others, that if we ever encountered such a situation we should demand to go to the police station, where we were more likely to get a fair hearing than from cops on the take on the street. When the policemen continued to insist that we pay a fine, we finally asked to be taken to the police station. What we hadn't expected, however, was that they'd agree so readily. They opened the back door and two of them got in, both with their large rifles.

The presence of two armed men in the back seat certainly changed the dynamic for me. I immediately began envisioning all the ways the situation could go wrong -- a Mozambique prison was the good option, our bodies by the side of the road was somewhere down the line of thoughts that flashed through my head. The cops directed us back the way we'd come, and did point out a sign forbidding U-turns a couple of blocks before the intersection where we'd turned. They directed us a few more blocks down the main boulevard and then told Scott to turn down a small side street. Scott made the turn, but stopped short when we saw the small, rutted street and suspicious looking area we were headed into. It didn't look as if we were headed to a police station.

I have to give Scott credit for taking a stand at this point. I certainly didn't want to head down that street. When they told him to keep going, he said "No, I don't feel comfortable going down this street." They kept angrily insisting that we had to go to the police station as requested, and Scott kept refusing to move. They started shifting around and telling us we had "to pay" for what we'd done. At this point, I thought it's time to bargain. Luckily I've kept about $100 U.S. in my wallet ever since we arrived in Africa. I figured it would come in handy sometime -- and this seemed like the time. I pulled out $30 and asked if this would help pay for what we'd done. At first, they refused it, and said it was too little -- the "fine" would be much more. I put the money back in my wallet, and told them it was all I had on me. Scott continued not to budge, and the policemen continued to hassle us for a while, but they seemed to be running out of steam. Finally one of them said, that if we'd just drive them around the block, they'd "show us" the police station, but we wouldn't have to go in and they'd accept the $30 as payment for what they'd done.

Scott reluctantly drove forward, and the cops kept their word; they pointed out some official looking building and told us that if we ever "got in trouble" again that was where we should go for help -- as if they were now offering assistance! We turned back onto Mao Tse-Tung Blvd. and pulled over, and they got out. I handed them the $30 and they wished us a good journey. We drove on -- slowly -- and exhausted. The entire ordeal had taken about half an hour. We made a half-hearted effort to put it behind us and to find a near-by beach, but the experience had soured us on Mozambique for the time-being, and I was very happy to arrive home to safe, secure little Swaziland. We'll go back sometime in search of those perfect Mozambique beaches, but we'll definitely skip Maputo.

This coming weekend, we're off to another "fun-filled" city we've been warned about, Johannesburg, to pick up our friend Karen, who will be visiting for the next few weeks. Wish us luck....