Mozambique Police and Rach 3

These days I found myself driving in Mozambique. Great road conditions, surprisingly, and majestic lush scenery, with overflowing tropical vegetation, rivers, and lagoons. My hired car, a black Toyota Corolla, for which I was overcharged, and which was probably shipped over to Mozambique from Japan, when it had run too many miles to be worth anything, was driving great. Overall, I was ecstatic how smooth my first self driving experience in Africa was going, until, about four hours out of Maputo, I was stopped by the police. I had been warned about police in these parts, so when I was asked to secure the car and follow them, I stock up with patience and an idiotic touristy smile, and walked out of the car.

I had been driving too fast. They had evidence, they showed me a picture with numbers. This was a town, I was told, a residential road. I looked at the forest up and down the road, not a house to be seen. I knew there was not much point in discussing this, but I tried to make a point that I thought this was a highway, as it had been for the last four hours, and that I am always a very careful driver. The young officer, who was fluent and humorous in English, jumped to the point: “In your country, how much to you have to pay when you drive too fast?”. There was no point in trying to explain to him that when I passed my driving exam in Greece, speed limits was a subject for the theory test, that it was as likely to find people driving in super-sonic jet speeds in the centre of town, as it was to have someone in the fast lane of a highway competing with a Paralympic turtle champion. I couldn’t explain to him either that in my country, at least when I learned to drive, it wasn’t a matter of how much the fine would be, but of how long. How long till you find someone that knows someone, whose cousin is married to someone that will talk to his friend who will erase the penalty. But I was in Mozambique however, so my best defence was a smile.

The police officer, likely wanting to practice his English, seemed to enjoy the conversation, and perhaps even wanted to dazzle his impatient colleagues. After a short deliberation between them, I was informed that the fine would be 4,000 Metikal (about 130 USD), and I was shown a chart with the fines. “What can you offer us? How can you apologise?”, I was asked by the young policeman, with an innocent smile, while seemingly untouched by any response from me. “I can say I am really sorry and it won’t happen again. I will be even more careful.” He turned to his colleagues and they all laughed to hear that I was offering an apology by saying “I am sorry”. I was strategically omitting to mention the fact that I can communicate in Portuguese, hoping this will come to my advantage at some point.

“I don’t have any money I am afraid, but I can offer a CD. I am a musician, and as an apology I can give my music.” I was expecting anger as patience would grow thinner, or at least even more laughter, but to my surprise, they seemed to like the idea. “But we need four CDs. We don’t all live in the same house!” Not a problem. I ran to the car and right in the middle of the Mozambique countryside I brought back the gift of Rachmaninov 3^rd Piano Concerto to four excited police officers.

“We are glad to support a foreign artist,” I was with goodbyes. Pity I didn't autograph them, I thought walking back to the car.