In pursuit of happiness

This is the best time of the month: when people have got money in their pockets. We set up ourselves by the side of the road and look forward to a profitable day. We like to work in threes: once we stop a car one of us talks to the driver, while another one stands in front, and the third stands behind. In that way the driver can’t make an escape if he thinks he’s caught.

There’s only one problem today. This is such a good route that there are three other road blocks within two kilometres. It doesn’t make any sense, because one group is taking the money that another group could get. But our Commanding Officer doesn’t listen to our complaints. He just says if you think your salary’s too small it is up to you to work out how to get some extra.

As I said, it’s a good route. That’s because there are so many cars and mini-buses. The mini-buses are the best for us: they often haven’t paid their insurance, or their lights don’t work. It amazes me how many fines they pay because their lights don’t work, but the drivers tell us that the owners are too busy to do anything about it.

But in some ways this is a bad route, because most of the drivers have very little money. A friend of mine has got a much better one: he managed to be assigned to the other end of town. They’ve mounted a wonderful operation there. Every month or so they set up road blocks to catch people who haven’t paid their insurance. Quite frankly I’m not surprised that people don’t pay it on time – how do you find $450 to pay in one go? It’s ridiculous. But it’s good for us. As I was saying, in their road blocks they catch Mercedes, Land Cruisers, Pajeros, Hummers – all sorts of fancy cars. Then, if the driver can’t pay, they clamp the wheels. He’ll find the money quick – you can be sure of that. So they pick up $50, $100 or even $200 if they are lucky. The best ones are the expatriates because they easily get scared.

The only problem is that sometimes the driver of someone with connections gets hit on, and we get a huge blasting from on top, but it’s still worth it. It happened to me not long ago – boy was I annoyed. I thought I had got someone: she had a broken mirror. That’s not a big deal, but she had a fancy car and a white guy sitting next to her, so I thought she’s good for $50, or at least $20 – that’s 20,000 francs. But then she turned out to know the Commander in Chief for the whole province and I got a blasting. How unfair is that? (See Two Policeman and a Princess).

So this is my plan. I’ve worked it out with my two mates. We’ll stick to the area we’ve got. We only get about 2000 francs a time for most of our fines – it’s nothing more than a friendly deal so that the drivers don’t loose too much, and we keep a steady income. Sometimes, especially if we are lucky enough to see an accident, we can get 20,000 francs, or even more, but that’s not very common.

We’ll keep half our takings in a special place: it’s investing in the future. When we’ve got enough we’ll go to our Commander and persuade him (if you know what I mean) to give us a road with lots of the posh cars.

Then we’ll be happy.