The Police

By Leah

At a business meeting today, I met a Kenyan in his 50's who told me the following story about an encounter with the police. He was smiling the whole time, maybe because he knew I would think it was ridiculous, maybe he was embarrassed, or maybe he just has a good sense of humor.

"I was riding in my car and a policeman stopped me. He didn't tell me what I did wrong but he said we must go to the police station. He is the police, so I did what he said. The whole time we were riding in the car, we talked about the elections [the post-election violence of 2007/8]. He told me I was good because I was from the [...] tribe. He said that he wanted to make sure the [...] didn't take power. He kept talking like he was personally going to make sure they didn't take power. I was thinking 'you are the police, you are just supposed to keep order, no matter who is in power.'

Very soon I realized we were not going to the police station- we were simply doing his patrol together. We would stop every 10 minutes or so, and he would pull over a motorist and take a 'little something' [bribe] from them. After three and a half hours on patrol, I asked him if I could please go home. He said 'how much money do you have with you?' I said '1,000 shillings' [about $11]. He took it from me. Then I said to him 'you have used my car and my petrol to do your patrol, and you have made a lot of money today, using me as your driver- look at that stack of bills in your hand. I think I deserve a little something.' After we discussed it, he agreed and gave me 2,000 shillings. So I made a little money that day being a police officer."