We had quite an adventure this evening. It all turned out alright, though. Richard used his "get-out-of-jail-free" card (yes, you literally can use it get out of jail in this country!), and we were ok. But there was a minute there where I thought one of us was going to be dragged off to the military prison, or worse!
I just realized that now I'd better tell the details of this story tonight, or you'll all be worrying about me all weekend!
It's actually a very simple thing, and I don't want to say too much, actually, let I get in trouble from my host government... so here's a simplified version of what happened:
Jackie, Richard and I were going out for dinner with our South African friends. The South African was driving. At the end of our street, we had to wait for the vice-presidential motorcade to go by. Which we did. However, the driver didn't see the very last mini-van cruising by on the wrong side of the road. And we almost pulled out in front of him. Fortunately, we stopped before we actually DID pull out. But that mini-van decided to stop, as well.
Seems the van was full of bodyguards with rather large weapons. And they weren't too happy that we were about to pull out in front of them, even though it was a completely innocent mistake on the part of the driver! No shots were fired, but there were quite a few soldiers who jumped out of the van (with their guns) and they ended up taking the keys to the landcruiser that we were all in, and left us sitting in the middle of the road!
Hm. Now what? Well, now the khawaija show began! There we were, stranded on our street corner, with no extra keys for the landcruiser. First order of business was to get the truck out of the middle of the road. So Richard plus three white women and a cute little brown South African started pushing the car, much to the amusement of the folks sitting around on the corners smoking their shishas! The Richard ran back to our compound to bring our Toyota Hilux around.
While Richard was getting the truck and the keys, we were all standing around on the street corner, trying to ignore the stares of the overly-friendly street-corner folks. There were a couple of groups of guys who came and just openly stared at us, standing right in front of us and just staring. I don't know that I'll ever get used to that one!
Thankfully, we weren't too far from home, so Richard didn't take too long to get back with the other truck. He also brought the extra set of keys to our Hilux, which, frighteningly enough, both opened the doors to the Landcruiser and started the engine!
Just as we were about to jump in the truck and be on our way, the mini-van of soldiers came back. And Richard started talking. It actually took him a while to talk his way out of things, and he had to show his special super powered get-out-of-jail-free card so they wouldn't haul our South African friend off to the military prison. I'm sure thankful Richard has that card! The soldiers finally gave the key back for the Landcruiser, and we were on our way again.
It was just a little bit of a hair-raising adventure before dinner!
2 comments:
I don't get it. He really has a CARD that he showed them that worked? What is it?
Yup. It's a special ID card which very few people have. Basically, it seems like you can get one if you have a lot of people to vouch for you, to say you're a good guy, plus all the police checks, military checks and all that. It's a really long process, takes a lot of time and money, but once you have it, it means you can do a lot! He can actually go to the prison and bail someone out after they've been arrested. It then means that he is responsible for the person he bailed out of trouble, so it's quite a bit of responsibility, as well. But it's a handy little card to have. I know who I'm calling when I get into trouble!
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