My Level Best

It was only supposed to be a quick trip to Serrekunda Market to meet with a potential customer. At the guidance of the friend traveling with us, I turned the car down the crowded, narrow market road, navigating slowly down a dusty, unpaved road teeming with people on foot, people on bicycles, people pushing wheelbarrows full of household items, and people carrying stacks of fabric on their heads. I tried to turn down a side street where we needed to go, but a man in the crowd waved his arms at me and shouted, "One way! One way!" Then, in Wollof, our friend asked the man where we could park, since we couldn't drive right to the shop where we needed to go. The man gestured to a place further down the road where a few taxis had pulled over to park in front of some market stalls selling fabric and plastic buckets. I pulled up in front of the plastic buckets, getting as far to the side as I could, and we went off to see our customer.

Twenty minutes later, as I walked up to the driver's side of the car, keys already in hand, a female police officer approached me. I have a theory about female police officers, which is that I'd rather deal with them than the male police officers. The women generally seem less threatening, and less inclined to yell at me, than the male police officers I've encountered on the roads so far. "Is this your car?" she bellowed. "What are you doing here? You cannot park here! Show me your documents!" Gulp. So much for my theory. I hand her my license and the insurance paperwork. She folds my license inside the insurance paperwork and holds it tightly in her hands. I hate surrendering the originals, but officers always ask for originals. Now they are her leverage over me. "Come with me," she says. "We're going to the police station."

Ah, the dreaded words: We're going to the police station. Doug and I have already bribed our way out of this dreaded phrase on four separate occasions, and for a moment, I have hope that we can do it a fifth time. But suddenly, one, two, three more police officers of varying ranks surround us, their voices raised in various degrees of anger and authority. I glance down the street, and my chest tightens as I see a gleaming white police tow truck pulling up alongside our car. It's the first tow truck I've ever seen in the country, and it is now blocking all traffic on this cramped one-way street. A long line of taxis and cars behind it are now honking furiously, and the highest ranking police officer starts yelling at the others to hurry up.

"Where is the key?" the female police officer demands of me. 

"It's here, it's here," I say, keeping the keys firmly inside my purse. "Please, I'm here now. I do not want any trouble. You do not need to tow my car. Please, I will drive it to the station myself." 

"Talk to my boss," she says, waving in his general direction. I look over at the man, and he is gesticulating angrily at everyone while talking to Doug and our friend. At some point, he waves the tow truck along in frustration, since it has been blocking traffic for too long, and I breathe a small sigh of relief as I watch the truck roll slowly away from us. 

After a bit more heated gesturing, the police boss assigns our case to another, lower ranking male police officer who has been hovering about. The female officer hands my documents to our new escort, who joins us in the car. When I look up, I see that the tow truck has picked up another poor soul's car further down the road, and I am suddenly grateful that we got to our car before the tow truck did. The officer in our car tells me to follow the tow truck down the road. Where the road widens slightly, the police officers bark at me to make a seemingly impossible U-turn as dozens of onlookers stare and point. I hear someone call my name, and out of the corner of my eye, I spot my tailor in the crowd, but I am too distracted, nervous, and embarrassed to wave back at her. 

We survive the U-turn, and the police boss and the original officer both yell at the officer in our car to take us directly to the station. Dang it; there go all of my hopes of bribing this man. We crawl down the street to the station, and my heart sinks even further as we roll through the green gates.

Our escort asks me, politely enough, for the key to the car. I fumble nervously with my keychain for a moment, and finally manage to detach the key. Then the three of us follow the officer into a small office where half a dozen people sit waiting for two other officers to process their documents. Our escort hands my papers to the man sitting at the desk, who passes them off to the woman next to him. I watch as she copies my name onto an official-looking sheet of paper, then starts writing other things.

When she finishes, she calls my name. Her first question is not what I expect, and I have to ask her to repeat it. "Can you read?" she repeats, and I nod. "Here, read this." She hands me my summons. It states, in very official language, that on today's date, on or about 14:30, I have hereby obstructed traffic on a public highway, etc., etc., and that I must appear in court tomorrow morning for a hearing. Appear in court? For a parking violation? There wasn't even a No Parking sign! She asks me to sign the page, but I hedge, saying that Doug is calling our friend who is a police officer, and I want to wait for him to arrive. She huffs a bit, and another officer says, "You refuse to sign our papers, you don't listen to us, then how do you expect us to help you?"

I change tack a bit, becoming apologetic, asking if I can please just talk with someone, it was a mistake, I am very sorry, is there anything I can do? She says that I can appeal to the man inside the inner office. Our friend nudges me forward, saying that I should go in to make the appeal by myself, not wait for our police officer friend to arrive. He can tell by listening to their conversations in Wollof that they were willing to excuse the offense since they've decided we are foreigners who don't know any better, but they got offended when we started to talk about "calling our guy." I ask if it's OK to go into the office to speak to the officer in charge. Doug comes with me.

Inside, I find three officers, one of whom seems to be the leader of the group. "Excuse me, sir, may I speak to you about my situation?" He agrees. "I am so sorry, sir. I have made a mistake. You see, I am new to the country, and I asked the local people if it was OK to park there, and they said yes, so I thought it was OK. I never meant to cause any trouble, I am very sorry for this, I understand now that parking there is not allowed. I appeal to you for your assistance." I am humble, meek, penitent, slightly formal. I listen and nod while he explains how they are trying to keep the streets clear, that the market road is already too crowded, and that they are simply trying to do their jobs as police officers to keep the streets clear. "Yes, yes, of course, you must keep it safe for everyone," I say. "I understand, I will not ever park there again, I promise." He tells me that he has left my situation to the discretion of the officer in the front office, but that he will speak to the man for me.

Back in the front office, I stand in front of the desk officer who is still in possession of my license, my insurance, and most importantly, my car key. I have heard him request a $100 fine from another man in the room, and I steel myself for a similar amount, though I do not know the other man's offense. Surely, I think, he will not charge me any less, given that my skin color screams money to most people. He looks up at me and makes similar comments about needing to keep the roads clear. I repeat my apologies, more abridged this time. He says that he knows that I am new to the country, I am still learning the ways of the road, and that they will let me go with a warning this time. I promise that I understand now, and that I will not cause a problem again. Just when I think he will ask me for money, he picks up my court summons and tears it into pieces. "Don't worry, it is finished," he says. I ask for my car key, afraid to take it, uncertain if I am really free. "Is that your key? Take it," he tells me. I pick it up off the table and walk outside to where Doug has gone to greet our police officer friend.

"Did he really just let you go?" Doug asks.

"Yes, just a warning," I reply. We can hardly believe it.

The most unnerving thing about interacting with police officers here is not knowing the rules. Back home, if I get pulled over for speeding or for making a wrong turn, I am annoyed, or perhaps angry at myself, but not scared. I'm not worried about how to interact with the police officers; I know that I hand them my license and registration, they scan it, maybe ask me if I knew that my headlight was out, or that I really shouldn't have turned out into traffic quite so quickly. And except for that night in college that a cop pulled me over on the freeway in downtown San Jose and made me get out of the car and accused me of being both drunk and stoned (um, hello? I don't think so!), I know that at most, they'll just write me a ticket, hand it over, and then I'll go on my merry way.

Here, there are no such rules. I have been yelled at on multiple occasions by police officers, not in a threatening, I'm-going-to-hurt-you sort of way, but in a way that implies that I am an idiot driver with no right to be behind the wheel. Each time, I have also been told that I have to go to the station for a court summons -- this seems to be the common threat for every traffic violation, however small. And Doug and I have both been stopped for questionable reasons that seem like blatant attempts to get bribes, like the day a cop pulled Doug over because "our car sounded too loud." Up til now, we've paid small bribes to avoid going to the station. Officers don't usually ask for bribes outright, but will accept them if they are presented in a relatively suave, let's-not-have-this-hassle sort of way.

But today, I'm actually sort of glad that we finally went to the station. As I sat there in the office, crossing my fingers and sending up silent prayers for a quick resolution, I realized that the people in front of me were not my enemies. They're just people. They aren't out to get me (just maybe my money). I'm not going to get dragged into the back room and tortured. If I am apologetic, and state my case humbly and sincerely, going to the station does not have to be the end of the world. As our friend put it today, you just need to do your level best, and everything should work out. (And if your level best doesn't work, then you call in your police officer friend.)

Don't get me wrong, I hope today was the first and the last time I ever have to drive through those green gates. But now it's one less unknown for me to fear. I have been there, done that, and written the blog post. As much as I hope to never visit a police station here again, I feel a bit more confident that I can handle the situation if I do.

That said, I don't think I'll be parking near a market anytime soon.