Me and the Police

I don’t quite know what it is yet but I seem to be attracting police like bees to a flower.
So, last Tuesday I’m driving into town with Mich and this police lady signals for me to stop and park at the road side. Sure no problem I park and wait for her to come up. She looks into the car and comments about how Mich looks like me after which she waves me off. That left me a little confused, okay seems the police are getting a lot friendlier, they just stop you to have a chart and check out family members. I found that quite funny but you know continued on my way. Mich was buckled in at the back so maybe that was what she wanted to check.

Then just yesterday, I’m driving into town for a lunch date when again a police man signals for me to slow down and park at the road side. I comply, park and wait for him to come round. He asked to see my driving permit (shoot!!! I didn’t have it with me, and even if I did it’s expired seeing as I have been away for two years and wasn’t exactly thinking of renewing it for the 3 months that I will be here). I told the officer that unfortunately I didn’t have it with me. Now that was offence number one. Then he asks me if the insurance was up to date and it was yeee! (One less worry). He walks around the car, looks at the tires and mentions how they need replacing (okay).
“But now madam, I have two cases with you, you don’t have a permit and the tires of your car should have been replaced long time ago” (of course I am paraphrasing but it’s quite similar). “Now you see”, he brings out his book that shows the fines for driving without a permit and driving a ram shackled car (my words) and the total cost came up to about shs 90, 000/=. I’m thinking boy oh boy! Am I done for or what?
The officer then asks me who owns the car and I say ‘my husband’, so he asks me to call Sam. Thankfully I had some airtime on my phone so I call Sam and brief him before handing over the phone. They talk for a bit before he hands the phone back to me, Sam somehow hopes he will let me go.
So after the phone call the officer stands around for a bit before asking me if I am a good woman. That left me speechless, “good woman?” what do you mean?, the first thing that came to mind was the EE (Evangelism Explosion) question “if you stand before God and He were to ask you, why should I let you into heaven, what would you say?” and if one answered that they had been good then the next statement would be we can’t get in because of good works. Now why my thoughts took such a tangent, I don’t know. Anyway I still didn’t have an answer for the police man. So he tells me to park the car and go and pay. I told him I didn’t know where to go. At this point the other policemen come around and comment on how he had kept me so long. He then said, “ok madam, go and work on those tires and come back here”, then I said “ do I need to do this immediately because I’m almost late for an appointment”. At this point he tells me to write down my name and number so he can call me incase I take long to return.
I jot it down for him and prepare to drive off, he looks at the piece of paper and says “Ongwen?” are you luo?”, I said “no my husband is, but I come from soroti”. Then he greets me in the local language “akironyo?”- how are you and I answer “ejokuna”- I am fine (I wasn’t fine, I don’t know why I said I was fine). He then laughs and says “eh, you mean I was going to charge my muko? (in-law). Then he finally says “tell Ongwen the police man needs a fat chicken” and that was the end.
Phew! Ugandan police! At the end of the day I was glad that he let me go but I also know he was very sympathetic. We shall not talk about the crazy way things work this side of the world, I just know if this had happened in Philly I would have gotten a ticket in the first 10 seconds and there would be no discussion, or exchange of niceties.