A car makes an abrupt turn and stands next to me. Two police officers vocife and gesture with their hands as if the end of a day that has just begun to fall on our shoulders. It's nine o'clock. They wear high music, aspect of being drunk and challenging gesture. It's nine o'clock, I have not had coffee yet, and I just found out last night that I have stolen the rearview mirror and car headlights. It's nine in the morning and another guy threatens to fuck more plaque on your plate that formalizes robberies. Start one day in Maputo.
I have stopped the right time so that two agents have turned on the light: "Money in sight".
I am standing in the corner in which the avenues converge 24 Julio and Julius Neyere, In front of the Nautilus cafeteria in which I leave my friend Ana Paula while I go to the Spanish embassy to have a meeting with diplomatic representation and strengthen "professional" relationships. I'm in a hurry. I have stopped a second for her to get out of the car and I follow my path. I have stopped the right time so that two agents have turned on the light: "Money in sight". They get off your car, The documents ask me and explain that I have stopped in a forbidden place (a corner in which hundreds of cars stop every day). We try to explain that I have only stopped to get off the car. It did not matter, They have two Europeans who would have tried to fine in double row in the middle of the desert.
Ana Paula talks to them. She has a resident card and the Portuguese is her tongue. It demands that they go down the car's music and remind them that they cannot keep my circulation permit, Something that threatens Parra to increase the price of the fine. Asks me to keep me away. I'm in a hurry, I'm late to my appointment. Then, In the middle of the conversation, She tells them: “I have stolen the headlights and the rearview mirror tonight in the car. Are you not going to do anything about that?”. They look at the vehicle with indifference and give the official solution of the police in this type of case: “They go looking for them to the star market, There you will find it ", Answer the guy arrogant. We pay the fine. I arrive late to my appointment and without surprising that the only solution that a police officer gives you a robbery is going to look for a market that he knows. At the end of the day, They had already stolen first.
The star market is the official market for robberies in Maputo. Anything that disappears you have to go looking for it there
The star market is the official market for robberies in Maputo. Anything that disappears you have to go looking for it there. A rules of a game without rules that everyone knows. The most important section for us is that a target should not recover what they have stolen, The price its multiplies by three. We send for coasts, An old friend of Ana Paula and Victor who works with them in her company. How much do you think will cost? "The last time for some headlights I paid 6.000 MZN (170 euros approx)”, he answers. We give it 7.000 Meticais because there is also a mirror. An hour and a half later return with 500 METHICALS OF EXCHANGE, The two headlights and our mirror, The same that had just steal us and that has been engraved on the glass on the glass.
Two weeks before
We crossed the border with South Africa and heading to Nelspruit. I carry the car. We for a few police control 20 kilometers of the border (Both sides of the border are a hotbed of cars where the police in each country abuse their neighbors with impudence. Mozambique's registration betrays me). This time business. I lived a year and a half in South Africa and I know the game rules better. The agent asks me to teach you papers, The triangles and the vest. Bingo does with the triangles. The car is not mine, A Land Cruiser, And I'm not able to find them in a vehicle that is a ship. Negotiation begins with a fat guy, great, who tries to get the money with a condescension that I hate. I make my fool, Delay the negotiation as if I was not in a hurry and very polite you ask you to let me go between jokes and conversations of the Spanish soccer team, The World Cup and how beautiful the country is. By then I have understood that the only problem is that his boss is close and he is not interested in putting on a fine that does not go to his pocket. After 20 minutes in which I do not leave the control where other policemen are, And he comes and always looking sideways, lets me go under the promise that I will buy some triangles in the first city I find. I have triumphed, I, While I return to the road to fulfill my promise.
"Not to be seen, Leave money in the car seat ", I recriminate with my eyes
20 kilometers later I stop another agent. He does it 200 meters before the city where I am going to buy the triangles, The first one I saw on the way. This time there are only two types. For the beginning of the conversation I understand that he is bought with the fat sly. Fast takes me away from the other colleague, superior, that is watching traffic. The police vehicle is hidden next to a tree. Again the boring negotiation begins. Anyone where there is a “menu” of infractions and prices. From where I am stopped I see the store where the triangles sell. I tell him that I'm going to buy one as I talked to his colleague. Tells me that the infraction is already made and they are 500 Rands (50 EUR). "It's a lot of money I replicate", knowing that the beginning of negotiation. He looks at me with condescension, Open the car door so that nothing is seen, Covering to his colleague the vision of my hands and his hands, And he tells me that he leaves it in 300 rands.”200”, I offer that I know I will not get much more and already exhausted from a farce that will make Johannesburg very night. It reminds me that if I want a fine we have to go to the police station, I will not think of asking for an official role. I take my wallet and the agent makes me a disapproval gesture. "Not to be seen, Leave money in the car seat ", I recriminate with my eyes. This time it is me who looks at him with contempt and loose two tickets on his seat. He smiles and reminds me that I bought the triangles but I want to be fined again while I give way to return to the road.
