Secondary school students arriving for the
new school year were usually dropped off by the daladala at the bridge near the
dusty track that, after a four and a half kilometre march, reached the school.
It was daunting enough for the new entrants who wore expensive new uniforms,
carried with them their new gear and very often pocket money and in many cases,
school fees at least for the term. Returning students also carried new gear, pocket
money and sometimes too, their school fees.
These kids were easy pickings for
loiterers waiting along the track with robbery on their minds. Some kids, boys
or girls, would turn up at the school in their underwear or others simply in
bare feet, and many with no money! It was generally known that the robbers were
not hard-core dangerous villains, and none of them had weapons other than a panga – machete. The robbers were not
active all the time, probably because the students arrived sporadically and over
a long time-frame.
Mbise had told me about these robberies,
and one day in conversation with the deputy headmaster, I suggested that the
school’s guards capture the robbers and take them to the police. The police, I
knew, would not come because they had no transport. The school too only had a
beat-up old flat deck, so I offered to take the guards down next time a robbed student
arrived at school.
That very day a student came running to
tell me the three guards were waiting for me, so down the road we charged!
There were four youths who had with them pangas and new shoes from three
students. They were easily caught, in fact I thought they were pretty lame for
a bunch of robbers! So off to the police station we went with the guards
feeling remarkably powerful! The robbers
were out of the station an hour later. At least one said he wanted to use the
toilet, and the cops apparently allowed the others to accompany him and they
simply ran off! That was the story, but we weren’t told, so had failed to
frisk them for the money they had stolen! So it is more likely they coughed up at
least some of the money to the cops and they let them go!
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From time to time there were spates when
bandits would maraud throughout the district, sometimes there were as many as
twenty of them together, creating difficult and violent situations. They were
prepared to use their pangas to slice people! The police were not much use due
to their lack of transport. The police usual mode of transport was to hold up a
vehicle and cadge a lift. Sometimes I would give them a lift, other times I
would respectfully refuse saying it was company policy not to give uniformed
men a lift. I knew some by sight and for others made a judgement on
physiognomy. Some of them, once in the vehicle would try to con me into taking
them out of my way, which I never did. The cops were like horses, if you showed
fear, they would take advantage!
It was not unusual for especially the
white-uniformed traffic police to stop motorists, perhaps to take a cursory
look around the vehicle, then tell the driver that he is hungry, expecting a ‘donation’.
I never coughed up, my usual line being, ‘I have not eaten since morning either,
so I was hoping you might give me something! I don’t carry money for fear of
being robbed!’ I always said it with a smile and managed to get away with it.
For a time, the government was strapped
for cash and were unable pay the police or other government employees, so the
prime minister suggested that the police be more active in their pursuit of
crime and collecting fines. He didn’t say ‘pocket the money’ but that was the
inference.
I was stopped by a cop on my way into town
and he reckoned my reflectors needed renewing, so he wanted to fine me Tsh20
000/- When he realised I wasn’t going to pay him, he wanted to hold my licence
until I returned with new reflectors. I told him that if I had no licence when
the next cop stops me, I would be in a worse situation, so I offered him a ride
into town to the central police station where we could ask his boss if there
was anything wrong with my reflectors. He waved me on.
One of the little idiosyncrasies of
village life is when women are concerned or afraid, they have a call something
like: ooowhee, ooowhee! So it was
decided at village level that if the bandits arrived, the call was to be made by neighboring women and the village men were to respond quickly. Fines were
imposed on the men who did not turn out! The idea didn’t really work because
against twenty others, the village men couldn’t be which of their peers would
turn up! On the other hand, many villages had a sort of militia made up of ‘selected’
local youths who sometimes patrolled at night, which was all very well, but
sometimes they weren’t much better than the bandits! My mate caught a bunch of them
interfering with a teenage girl and had to escort her home!
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Sometimes I had a lot of money in the
house, always well-concealed. I had no choice because I needed it for wages or project
materials and couldn’t go running into town every time I needed to pay for
something. Whenever someone called at the house begging for a cash handout, I
always told them I had no money in the house but to call back in a couple of
days, after I had been to town and I will have something. So I thought the word
was out that I had nothing to rob. I didn’t know that Mbise had spread the quiet
word that I had a firearm! Maybe he felt more secure telling the lie but a
firearm is something worth robbing!
Up in the next village a German Pastor
lived with his family, and it was fairly well-known that missionaries bring in a
shipping container full of valuable chattels. We on the other hand had an
allowance of twenty-five kilos of baggage and another twenty-five of
unaccompanied baggage per person, which was sensible in the scheme of things.
The Pastor employed two night guards, owned
two Labrador ‘guard’ dogs and lived in a securely fenced enclosure. One night
twenty or so bandits descended upon him! They had drugged his dogs, beaten up
his guards and gained access into his house. It was a frightening experience
for him and his family, with the treats of seeing the blood of a white woman on
the floor! The Pastor handed over one thousand US dollars, which was more than
enough to satisfy them and they left. It was a good thing that the bandits were
bought off, but it set a president because after that, bandits had the same
expectation in all expat homes!
A few days later, the Pastor came to me, seeking
for advice about procuring a firearm. He had obviously heard about Mbise’s little
lie. I told him I didn’t possess a firearm, and I advised him against getting
one. First, killing someone was not particularly compatible with his vocation
and secondly, one firearm against twenty bandits was an impossible situation.
Even if he killed half of them, he would eventually run out of ammunition and
then what? For sure the survivors would be angry towards him and his family. In
my opinion, negotiation was the only hope of salvaging a situation like that!
There were significant dangers, but this
disorder did not go on all the time. Generally we lived in comparative safety
by not displaying wealth or arrogance, but the dangers did impact on my
willingness to travel at night. Law enforcement was unreliable, which is why
people often took the law into their own hands!
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