for those of you who know me, you know that some of my fuses are pretty short…but I managed to keep one under control today. Take off was planned at 3pm to go to Dar es Salaam for 2 days. Not that I wanted to go to Dar but to hear at 15h30 (which was near the latest time to take off and reach Dar before sunset anyway) the cancelation of the flight, that is somehow lack of respect. Haouuuum…. I hate to waste my precious time, specially on a Sunday when I could have done things with my chick, “sieste crapuleuse” amongst various options…
I’m kind of in charge of everything about the aircraft. Only one plane, it would have been weird to hire an aviation manager or a chief-pilot. So here I am. I’m not too keen I must say. 5 weeks ago I started some correspondence with the various civil aviation authorities, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. What a nightmare…worse than our clowns in Belgium. Quite a feat I tell you. In turn when my bosses have asked me to start an air taxi company here, it didn’t help and I just refused. Not my cup of tea anywhere anyway, but even less here, not within my skills range either. I also came here to fly and enjoy life, not to be trapped in a bloody office all day…
but I hate to have a boss too. The Belgian Air Force spotted that in me when we were being assessed to be fighter pilots and incidentally officers. I only wanted to fly the hot stuff like the F16. So my problem with authority was quite obvious, I couldn’t stick or see the importance of protocol and those things, I couldn’t play the game. Here in Tanzania on the other hand, protocol, hierarchy, bureaucracy…have been instilled in a strong way, a superb example of brainwashing (still with an original touch though) that would make many propagandists jealous. One day I had pretended to moon a controller after an argument where he had called me stupid white man. On my way out of the airport, I was kind of arrested by a cop. Not charged but firmly asked to follow to the police station. I kept on grilling the cop and he finally admitted that the controller used to be a colonel and so he couldn’t say no to his request! Splendid example of abuse of power. Finally I walked out, quite puzzled by that.
paperwork is taken very seriously at any level. The lucky businessmen who provide paper to administrations are wealthy here too.
cops are corrupt here, a pretty understatement, but…the cops would stop a car and try to see anything wrong, or let’s say unusual, like my back window broken and threaten to send the matter to court or try to extort money on false safety pretenses. A minimum of common sense allows anybody to rebuke them but they keep on trying, maybe some new expats might get scared. Or they pretend that my Land Rover green roof is illegal because the color on the jeep papers say “white” and so I should have had the papers modified. It would be the same for some colored stripes on the flanks of cars. I’ve allowed myself a strong “fuck you” on the green roof issue and I sped off. James Brown’s “Feel Good” came to my mind.
Not only that cops are corrupt, they sometimes do extra hours with their friends the thieves. One day my bike was stolen from Karine’s car. Luckily the shop assistant had warned me on time so I ran after the thief, ready to make some cosmetic surgery on him: the moron had chosen an uphill road to escape, trying to jump on the bicycle was not convenient! There are thieves so stupid they really deserve a serious beating. Unfortunately he heard me catching up so he dropped the bike and ran away. I came back to the shop, Karine was busy talking to a cop who was refusing to give his ID and trying to walk away. Obviously he hadn’t helped us at all and was now embarrassed to be confronted, in front of a growing crowd. I just seized his hat while we called other cops and the UN security for Karine. In no time there are hundreds of people around laughing and curious to see what’s going to happen between a pissed off white guy and the cops. And in no time again, 15 cops were around us, all kind of uniforms or civilian clothes, some in jeep, some on motorbike, with shotguns, Kalashnikovs, helmets, bulletproof jackets and all. Great mobilization…they didn’t like me saying it would be nice to see such energy and availability when citizens (specially white) call them. But to protect one of their them…in the end we had to let it go, though we had learnt that our cop was not on duty that day! We could have put this rotten cop in deep shit, but at what costs for us? Incredible waste of time and energy…I should have done my moral duty but that is beyond my reach. The shop keeper told us that her and competitors hate these crooked cops and thieves who develop a ring around the shops and scare people away. Not good for business!
and lynching by the crowd or having a tire put on fire around the neck when caught stealing is not uncommon in these countries…and cops would pretend they arrived too late to prevent the action. Less paperwork and concern with a dead body than a wounded prisoner. Jails are overcrowded anyway. Better save the taxpayers’ money, right?
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