31 August 2007 - 12:57
Flashback: The moment when I realized I was socially integrated into African culture.
I was on my way back from a vacation in Mali, going overland through the corner of Senegal to get back to Mauritania. At the Senegalese border, I was jumping through all the regular hoops of the border crossing with customs officials when I was caught off guard…
“Entry fee is 3000 CFA,” said the customs agent that held my passport. Totally not true. He and I both knew that American citizens didn’t have to have a visa to enter Senegal, and there were no entry fees. He was looking for a little chub-chub, some illegal side money, a regular perk to the job in Africa.
It was only a couple bucks, but I was immediately indignant – this guy wasn’t pulling this over on me, I’m no tourist, I know better! “That’s not true,” I told him.
He knew he was in the wrong, but he had just gotten called out, and he was pretty mad. He stood up and raised his voice, “ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR?!”
Fortunately, I was on top of things, I wasn’t intimidated by his act, and I reacted quickly, appropriately – “No, of course not, sir. But maybe you weren’t aware that Peace Corps volunteers don’t pay this type of fee. I’m sure it is because you are very busy, because you have a lot of work to do, so maybe you forgot.”
That did the trick – he calmed down, grumbled at me to move on, still irritated that he didn’t get his chub-chub, but we had avoided a full-blown confrontation by me allowing him to save face, very important in this part of the world.
That’s when I knew that I had finally figured out how to handle things here.
Flash forward: A couple weeks ago, on my way back from my last liquor run to Senegal. After three years in Africa, I finally paid my first bribe. I’ve always been adamantly opposed to paying bribes here on principle. But lately, I’ve come to realize that it’s very ingrained in African culture, it’s just how things work here, and there’s nothing I or anyone else can do to change that. And I’ve been here too long – I’m jaded enough now that I just don’t care anymore. Still, I’ve been able to avoid paying any bribes up to this point, mainly by playing the “I’m an American” card several times.
This time was different though. We pulled up to the ferry crossing in the afternoon to find a ridiculous amount of cars lined up. There were still two crossings left that day, but there was no way we were going to get across if we stayed in line. I sat down, annoyed that we were going to have to stay the night in the crappy border town – I just wanted to get home. A man approached me and asked if I needed help getting across the border. Used to these guys, I brushed him off…then called him back a second later. I had an idea… “Can you help me get my car to the front of the line?”
“Well, it’s difficult,” he said.
“I really need to get to on the next ferry though,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a thousand-ougiya note. “Are you sure there’s no way you can help me?”
“Yeah, I think I can get you to the front,” he responded, taking the money from me.
The ferry came from the Mauritania side, unloaded all the cars, and then my man appeared out of nowhere… “Back up and go down this side of the building!” he yelled. I told our driver to do what he said, and we headed the wrong way down the track towards the ferry, cutting into line near the middle. Then he was beside the truck again – “Over here!” he waved us around another car that was stalled out, blocking traffic. “Now go there!” he pointed us ahead, as he held up two other cars trying to race onto the ferry. And like that, we were on the boat, moved up from number 30 in line to number 4. And we were off. We made it back home at a decent hour, and didn’t have to stay the night in a sleazy border town – well worth a $4 bribe.
