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journal entries22 Oct 04: [TS] Etosha Nat Park
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wheel clampedAfter spending a few days in the city of Dar Es Salaam we decided to move to the beaches district. Checked out of our motel and had some business to do before we left and one of those things was to stop in at the internet café. As one hour turned into two and so forth, I joked to Damien that we better get going before our van gets towed away because where it was parked required payment of parking fees that was to be paid by the end of the day or else it gets towed away. We found this out because the previous day the hotel m ana ger paid our fees for us to stop this from happening, so we knew we couldn't leave it there for too long. What we didn't know was that as far as the parking officers are concerned, the end of the day on Saturdays is 2pm. We arrived back at the van at about 3pm with pink parking tickets on the windscreen as we expected but also found our front drivers side wheel clamped. We looked up and saw some guys on the other side of the road looking at us as if waiting for us to come back to our van. They eventually came over, one young guy and an older one with a handkerchief wiping his brow as the hot afternoon sun shone on us. The younger one spoke in a soft educated manner saying that they were the parking authority and also that "the van should have been towed away by now but (patting his fist onto his chest) because of their humanity" we would only have to pay them ten times the amount of the parking tickets (10x$1.80) to take the wheel clamp off. The older guy added in a more aggressive nature that he was the main man and that this was much better than the alternative of calling the tow truck. Damien maybe feeling partly responsible for the situation wasn't going to have a bar of it and barked up a protest. "Where are the parking signs"? "Saturdays what"? How is anybody suppose to know"? After about 10 minutes of arguing Damien said he was going upstairs to get our hotel m ana ger to help our case. I suggested to these guys that what they were doing was called extortion, but this drew blank looks as it flew over their heads as soon as it left my mouth. I then asked them if they had any problem with calling the police to help sort this out and they indicated that it was ok but would be of no help to us as they were the authority. Damo came back downstairs and said the hotel m ana ger was out and so I told him what these guys had said about getting the police involved. Damien repeated the line to them of getting the police involved also if they had a fear of that but this time it brought on a reply of if we got the police that he would call the tow truck straight away. He also said he was not negotiating with Damien any more and walked off across the street threatening to hop into a cab and go call the tow truck but he just stood over there with one of many cabbies just hanging around. We then decided that it wasn't worth hanging around and I went over to see the older man and settle this. I said I want to settle this and he said its now $30US to take the clamp off plus the fine and $5US each way for the cab if he has to call the tow truck. "What happened to the humanity" I said. By this time he was onto handkerchief number three wiping away at his face. There's no more negotiation he said. I looked him in the eye to let him know that we knew exactly what he was doing. I asked him if he was going to be happy with this amount and he said yes. Just as I'm about to reach into my pocket he gets distracted by Damien talking to three policemen who just happen to have been walking by. Off he goes back across the street to talk to them. He tells the police the whole story in their native language of Swahili as Damien and I stand by. I should mention that this man, the parking authority has a stutter. So a story that should take 5 minutes to say takes him 15. The afternoon sun makes sure we all have a good cover of sweat now. Local people start to gather and listen in as if this is some form of entertainment. After 15 minutes of standing around hanging on his words, we see this man angrily walk back across the road and into a cab that takes off with him waving his finger at us. 10 minutes later he comes back in his cab and a tow truck arrives. The van is parked nose in to the kerb at a 90 degree angle so when the tow truck backs up to our van he is blocking the street traffic. By this time there is a crowd of sixty plus all around us and the van saying not to pay these guys any money and stopping the tow truck driver from hooking up the van. The traffic is now gridlocked and with the sound of car horns and with all these people around Dar Es Salaam street law is in full flight. Our hotel mana ger arrives in his full length Islamic robe and says don't pay him. A man caught up in the traffic gets the attention of the parking official who goes over to his car. He comes back and orders the tow truck to move and comes to me and says that the man in the car was his boss and said that we pay the fine and he unclamps our van. Great, Damien has already paid him the equivalent of $4US which was more than the original $1.80. I shook his hand thinking that was it. He then asked me to pay the tow truck driver $30US. Before I had a chance to reply the locals started hurling abuse at him and he then ordered his younger worker to unlock the wheelclamp. I shook his hand again. I called out to Damien to get into the van to go. Thanking people around us for their help, I started up the van and Damien got in the passenger side. One of the policeman tapped on Damien's window indicating he wanted to have a look in the back. Damien got out and opened the side door but all three policemen hopped in and the parking official who we have been arguing with all this time hopped into the front passenger seat forcing Damien to get into the back. That wasn't it, we were on our way to the police station, having to stop to pump up a slow leaking tyre with four people waiting in our car. Walking through the police station past the holding cell which was bursting with a huge fat guy eating a pizza. The whole story had to be told in a open room in front of a well dressed policeman with half a dozen men sitting in to listen. Again the stuttering main man spoke in Swahili and took his time. We put in two minutes worth and then waited for another ten. We were then asked to go into another room with the boss of the well dressed policeman who sat behind a desk and had to tell the stories all over again. It went on and on. Finally we were allowed to leave but not before the main man, parking official threatened to wheelclamp our van again if he saw it in his jurisdiction. We thought later "Who were the half a dozen men listening in at the police station? Crims? Cops? Guys just sitting around?" I went to shake his hand one last time but he refused. |
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email us!tom@stuckintoafrica.com.au | damien@stuckintoafrica.com.au
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