AWA

I've finally connected to the internet again to complete my last entry. I decided that waiting in line for five hours only to have to return the next day did not appeal to me. I asked our driver if there was another branch of the bank nearby. He agreed to take me there. The only challenge is that fees are scheduled to be paid at specific branches and the fee slips I had declared I should pay at the bank I had just left. I decided I could put on my best dumb Mezunga look and get away with paying them somewhere else - especially if I had waited for a long time on line. I stepped into the new branch of the bank to a line of 100 or so but instead of only one teller, there were 4! Awesome. A five hour wait at the last bank was reduced to just under two hours! Great deal to get 8 students paid.

We have a saying among our Uganda trip veterans - africa wins again - AWA for short. Today, AWA. As I've recounted in my earlier posts, our van has been pulled over several times during our stay. In the previous 8 years we have been coming, we've only been stopped 3 or 4 times. Something was definitely up. We began to query some other missionaries about whether they thought this was random or if something was amiss. Their immediate response was that it was school fee payment time for all Ugandans and so the policemen and policewomen are pulling over vans for what are normally inconsequential offenses in an attempt to procure bribes to help them pay fees. A typical policeman would earn approximately 100,000 Uganda Shillings per month (that is roughly equivalent to $48). Even an inexpensive school fee would be in the neighborhood of 29,000 USh plus lunch fees of 10,000 and an enrollment fee of 10,000 for each child. With average families having 4 or more kids, you can see why they would resort to these kinds of tactics.

We had such an attempt this morning. We left our compound and were immediately waived over by a team of three policewomen. One asked for Robert's driving permit while the others perused the van for other possible infractions. They once again suggested that our insurance was expired even though we had paid for a new sticker just two days earlier! Then they got on us for having shoes piled in the back seats for distribution up in the village. The three met together, spoke quietly in Lugandan and then informed us that they would need to impound the van because our driver could not produce the proper permits and we were illegally hauling freight in a passenger vehicle. The process would be that a ticket would be written and that Robert would have to go to a specific precinct to pay the fine. In the mean time, Jim and I would be impounded with the vehicle until he returned with proof of payment.

Then came the shakedown. If we would pay the 40,000 USh fine on the spot, she would let us proceed on our journey. Once Robert heard what they said, he launched into a tirade that we later learned was a threat to them about turning them in to their superiors. Suddenly they gave Robert his keys and told us to drive away. We decided then and there that Robert would need to straighten out the issue with his permit (something to do with applying for a new one after his other expired - a process that takes up to six weeks here) before we try and proceed any further in our program. It cost us half a day. Jim and I used the time to do some other paperwork before heading out to distribute shoes up north toward Gulu.