Gendarmes and general life (alliteration :))

I’m thinking that even though Espresso House and Bastos (pronounced bas-TOHS) are expensive, maybe they are worth it; the last two times I’ve been, I’ve had pretty good experiences, people wise. These interesting experiences have both occurred after leaving/while trying to get a taxi back to Biyem-Assi—the neighborhood I’m familiar with. One time when I went, I got a free cab ride home, paid for by a man named Godlove who gave me his business card and told me to call him so we could go out for drinks another day. Sadly, I didn’t. He seemed like a nice guy, but I tend to exercise a little more caution than is necessary in such situations.
On Sunday, I spent several glorious hours reading and enjoying actual quick WiFi (like, youtube videos that load quick) as well as some real coffee at the wonderful establishment that is espresso house. Suddenly, it was seven o’clock and getting dark. I’d forgotten my laminated passport photocopy, which serves as my identification, should the police stop me and ask for it, which they are authorized to do whenever they feel like it, and which they choose to do more often when it isn’t light out. Sprinkles of rain began to fall from the sky and darken the pavement as I walked down the stairs and across the street to wait for a taxi.
After five minutes, and six or seven rejections from taxi drivers it was basically pouring rain. I was trying to create a sort of body umbrella over my bag so my little netbook would stay dry (which it probably would have anyway thanks to its neoprene case) when a fullish taxi stopped and the Gendarme (policeman) sitting doubled with another man in the passenger seat told me to go to Mokolo for 200CFA and continue from there. I figured that couldn’t be worse than waiting in the rain, and arguing with the police seemed like an especially bad idea, given my lack of ID situation. I opened the back door to the cab to discover three men, who were moving as far to the left as possible to make room for me. I felt bad about being soaking wet, but no one said anything about it, so I figured it was alright. The gendarme in front said a few words to me in French to which I responded with either “Oui,” “Non,” or a shrug of the shoulders.
Not much later, my three companions in the back reached their destination and I got the back seat to myself. The driver wiped the quickly fogging windshield with a dirty rag every few seconds so that he could at least see the water droplets on the other side. The car had no windshield wipers. A few minutes later the cab stopped at what turned out to be Mokolo. I deposited two hundred franc coins in the waiting hand of the cab driver and ventured out into the rain which had started to fall in thick sheets that bounced off the asphalt. The gendarme also got out of the cab and motioned for me to follow him, which I did.
We ran/walked across the street until we got to an overhang sheltering a few dozen other rain refugees and joined them ourselves. The gendarme asked me something or other. I think it was whether or not I was afraid of the rain. He then asked me if I spoke French to which I responded not really (rather self explanatory, we’d been having the conversation in French). After that there was silence between us and no one else dared bother me because I was standing with a Gendarme. It was pretty nice.
It’s always funny looking out from places where people are sheltering themselves from the rain to all the other overhangs which are similarly packed with assortments of people who happened to be walking by when the rain began. Images of London or maybe New York pop into my head; hundreds of people rushing down a street heads covered by drab umbrellas with the occasional red one thrown in. A different world. Anyway, not too much time later the rain let up a bit and the Gendarme (I never did learn his name) led me over a few streets to a big hill and literally put me in a cab to the apartment. What a nice guy. Unfortunately he is definitely the exception rather than the rule. This was my most recent encounter with a Gendarme. I’ve had more than a couple others.
The first time I had to interact with one I was walking to an internet café from the apartment. It was the second or third week I’d been in the country and I more or less had no idea what was what. My French was also even worse than it is now (hard to imagine, I know). So there I was, walking along the side of the road, looking around awkwardly and flinching whenever a taxi honked at me when this car full of four or five gendarmes pulls up next to me. First, they asked me where I was going. By the time I’d figured out the word for internet café in French, they had established that I didn’t actually speak French. The conversation proceeded in English, which they spoke rather well. I was then offered a lift, which, at the time, scared the shit out of me. I insisted that I didn’t want a lift and would rather walk. They told me it was dangerous to walk. I told them it wasn’t far, but thank you very much for your offer and advice. I walked the rest of the way. I got to the call box and called my mom who reassured me about the matter. I don’t think that would even phase me now. How things change.
The next few encounters were in taxis, where the taxi driver was pulled over and fined for some or other violation. Not really big deals, but still a pain. In Limbe, however, our bus of awkward white people driven by none other than Julio, our awesome bus driver, got sent back to the hotel by a Gendarme with a large antiquated rifle who, after looking at all of our passports, told us it was unsafe to be out at night. We went back to the hotel. No biggie. On the same trip, another military officer wanted to confiscate all of our cameras because he apparently thought we were spies from Malawi. He eventually let us off the hook after taking pictures with Ashley and Zeus and asking one of them to be his wife.
One night after retrieving snacks from the bakery, I headed home looking to catch a moto taxi (don’t tell Teku!) but unable to find one who would take me for a price that wasn’t ridiculous, I decided to walk to Tam Tam where there are a ton. Halfway through my walk, I encountered a checkpoint. The Gendarme running it got my attention and asked for my ID, which, thankfully, I had. However, he was unsatisfied with it, saying that photocopies were not valid, even if they were certified by the chief of police. Bullshit. He told me he needed to see my real passport, which I didn’t have. I rummaged around in my bag, but I couldn’t find my phone to call Mr. Teku, who did have my real passport. He told me he would have to take me to the station. I used lots of sirs and of courses in my response and he told me to go talk to his friend, who was named Rene and wanted my phone number. I had finally found my phone in the depths of my bag so I had to give him my real number—he would see it if it didn’t ring when he called me. Big Gendarme man came back and told me I could go then, but in the future I should always have my original passport with me; photocopies were unacceptable. Relieved, I continued my walk to Tam Tam and finally got a moto for 150 francs. I now avoid the bakery at night for fear of running into Rene who called me six times the next morning, none of which I responded to.
The most annoying encounter I have had thus far happened the following night. Eric and I were in a taxi on our way to Montee Jouvence to meet up with most of the group at a bar owned by Liz’ host family. The taxi had nearly reached the intersection where the bar is when a Gendarme pulled us over and asked for our IDs. He then proclaimed that they were expired. Completely false. Our taxi driver was beginning to be pretty pissed off, so we paid him and got out. The Gendarme still had our IDs and told us he was going to have to bring us down to the station. Eric called Mr. Teku at this point who told us to wait there, he was coming.
Twenty or so minutes later, when Mr. Teku still hadn’t shown up and we still didn’t have our passports, one of Liz’ host brothers appeared and asked us what was going on. He ended up paying a bribe so that we could go. When Mr. Teku finally did show up several minutes later and found out about the bribe, poor Patieu was given hell about it. We bought him a beer and it was all resolved, I hope. It turns out our IDs weren’t expired at all. Big surprise.
So there they are, all my exciting police encounters. Sorry if it’s badly written. Hope it’s not too hard to read.
A la prochaine.