I'm in N'Djamena to pick up Sarah from the airport. My friend and fellow AHI board member, Chief Justice Aimé, has lent me his Toyota 4-Runner. I take Sarah and her Danish sidekick, Nathaneal, to the central market. I park right in front of the Grand Mosque, just ahead of where the taxis pick up and let off passengers. I roll down the windows and sit back to watch the passersby.
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A few kids come up with their metal bowls asking for alms for the mosque. I chat a little with them in my broken Arabic. One sticks his hand in and is fascinated by seeing the locks go up and down with just the push of a button. Finally, I can't get rid of them, even with the usual "Allah eftah" (God will provide) which should be followed by an "Amin" but instead these kids just say "Ma fi" (no way). Finally, I grab a bowl and toss it to the side and put on a fierce expression. They get the hint.
A young, beak-nosed Arab greets me from behind on the left. I turn my head and greet him back. As I turn back I see Sarah coming up to the window. She's just finished changing money and is about to head out to buy vegetables.
"Who was that guy and what was he doing by the window?"
"Nothing, he was just saying 'Hi'."
"Oh, he just looked suspicious."
"Don't worry about it. See you in a bit."
She heads out again with the green army duffel bag accompanied by Nathaneal.
A brand-new dark green pick up approaches from the left. "Police" is written in bold letters across the door. There are machine gun toting gendarmes in the back and a camo-wearing man with a maroon beret sticks his head out the passenger window, spots me, turns back and says something in Arabic. I hear the word "Nasara" (foreigner or "whitey") and the truck pulls in just in front of me and parks.
"Oh, boy," I think. "Here we go again."
Sure enough, the beret man and a couple of Kalishnikov bearers hop out and approach the right side of the 4-Runner. I'm a bit surprised, however, by their next move.
A young, gap-toothed teenager with his old school Russian automatic weapon opens the passenger door and gets in beside me, his gun slung loosely by his left side.
"Let's go to the police station!" barks the beret-wearing man, obviously in charge. "You're illegally parked."
I guess if I had recently arrived in Tchad I might be soiling my britches at this point, but for some reason I'm not afraid, just exasperated. I try not to sound angry and frustrated as I reply that I didn't know I was illegally parked since there is no sign and I've seen others park there often before.
The chief doesn't budge. I try a new tactic.
"I can't go because my wife is in the market and how will she know where I've gone and how will I find her?" I can see he's not convinced. "Now that you've done your job of informing me that one can't park here, I'll just move the car. Tell me where I can park and thanks for the warning, I won't park here again."
"You can park there on the other side."
I start up the car and back up and cross the one-way traffic to the other side right in front of the mosque, which seems to me a more likely spot to have a "no parking" sign, but I keep this thought to myself.
My passenger is still with me grinning stupidly at me from time to time.
The head honcho follows us over.
"Well, now that you've told us about Madame," he begins the negociations. "We'll let you off easy this time with just a 6000 francs fine."
I then pull out what I think is my ace. I reach into the glove compartment and pull out an invitation signed by the president of the republic to the year end meeting of the Supreme Court.
"This isn't even my car," I suggest. "Do you really want to haul off one of the supreme court justice's cars? One who's intimate with the Head of State himself?"
"Well, you're the one driving it now!" he retorts, "So it's you who gets to pay the fine."
What is it those Frenchies say? Touché?
At this point, a young man approaches me from the left with a bag of something.
"Are you Dr. James from Bere?"
"Yes." I reply, grateful for the distraction as time is an important element of the bargaining process.
"I've been looking all over for you. I'm the son of the man with the broken femur you operated on last week. I tried to find you earlier at the Mission guest house but I was told you weren't there. Then, my dad told me you were at the National Security Counsel office but I barely missed you there too."
"Yeah, I was there registering our new volunteer for the hospital. He just came back from Denmark with my wife. I called your dad back and told him to have you meet me here."
"So what's up with the gendarmes?"
I explain the situation to him and he starts up with explaining how I'm new to town and don't know the rules and that I'm the big doctor from Bere who just operated on his dad who is also a gendarme and one of there compatriots, etc.
The chief officer seems to be convinced...a little.
"Well, since you didn't really know and since you're here helping us out, we'll only make you pay 3000 francs."
My new friend has now gone over to the other side to talk more intimately with the police. He starts off in French but the officer quickly switches to Arabic saying he doesn't want me to hear their negociations. Unfortunately for him, I now understand a little Arabic and reply in Arabic that I understand him fine, thank you very much for asking.
He looks at me surprised and starts to laugh good-naturedly.
"Well, you obviously have money since you're driving a car so just share some with us for our tea."
"I have no money," I respond in Arabic. "If I did, why would I come from Bere on motorcycles and the common market car?"
The young, ugly, armed gendarme next to me now has a huge gap-toothed grin. He shakes his finger at me in wonder "You...you...you..." and gets out. They all walk off shaking there heads and laughing. Right before getting into their truck they turn one last time and offer a friendly wave goodbye.
As I thank my new friend and offer to carry his sack of homemade pasta to his convalescing dad, Sarah returns with Nathaneal.
It's then I realize that my cell phone has been stolen. In talking more with Sarah, it seems the guy she saw was on the right side of the car and was just pulling his head out of the window. Apparently, his partner greeted me from behind on the left so I'd turn my head long enough for the other guy to reach in the open window and take the cell phone from the central console. A slick manoeuvre.
Just when I thought Tchad was gettting boring!
Tact and grace (ours and the Spirit's) get us out of many tight spots. And being able to truly show you're neither as rich or as foreign as one might as assume.
ReplyDeleteThe cell phone - well, you can't see everything.