My Brief Introduction to Corruption

After the day in Agbogbloshie (the slum)  David and I jump in a cab. As the driver is pulling out he nearly hits a policeman on a motorbike who was coming down the street on the wrong side of the road. He slams on his brakes and the cop swerves and although it was a close call I am certain that there was no impact. The cop gets off his bike and starts yelling "you stupid driver you hit me!"

This cop was a high-ranking officer, you can tell because he was wearing a white coat. He calls another cop over, this guy is in a military style uniform so you know he is a lower  rank. He says to this cop: "He hit me, you saw it, he hit me!" Of course this cop who was no where near us at the time says that yes the car hit his bike, and we know for sure that the driver is in trouble now. How can he argue with two police that say it happened, especially when the supposed victim is higher up in the food chain?

The bastard in white tells the cab driver he must give him  20cedi, which by our standards is not much, but I imagine it is a couple of days earnings for this guy after the cost of petrol. I wonder if the whole 20 cedi went in his pocket or if he shared it with his alibi... I am quite sure he pocketed it all himself.

This was the second time in the first week that I saw police behaving badly. It definatley was not the last time either, this was only my introduction to African corruption. The first time was when two more high-ranking men in white tried to break up a group of boys gambling in the street.

They both had whips in their hands and were chasing them down the busy road striking out at them. I saw one boy get two blows in the back, the rest were luckier enough to be faster runners.

Feeling a mix of serious empathy for the poor driver and anger toward anyone with too much power, we drove on to the hotel. The driver got a bit lost, he seemed really flustered from the whole debacle, and pulled over to ask a man for directions. The man says he knows where the hotel is and gets straight in the back seat beside me saying he will take us there. I figured he wanted money and wondered how much the going rate is for a self-nominated tour guide. Or this was going to end up like Eben on my doorstep and I pictured walking down the street holding hands with this guy later. He led us to the hotel and as soon as we pulled up he jumped out and waved goodbye. He didnt ask for money, or our numbers, he didnt even ask us to pay for his ride back. Some people really do go out of their way to help strangers... just not those in powerful uniforms.

That night in the hotel I was sitting in my little room at my desk writing in my journal when the ceiling fan flies off the roof, smashes into the wall before hitting the ground, one of its arms striking my leg on the way down. It scared the bejezus out of me. Two of its arms were bent right back on itself, it was quite an impact, thank god I wasn't standing up at the time, I like my face the way it is. I was just sitting there looking at the crumpled metal on the floor at my feet, with my hands cupping the stinging on my leg, the noises and smells from Agbogbloshie were still running through me, the anger from the cops still had my my blood hot and I thought with a smile: "This is Africa!".