Traffic police Malawi style

The only detraction with being in Malawi has been the Police….they are a disgrace! We had barely crossed the border and hit our fist road block, the first thing that struck me was the local vehicles were being waved through, and only we were stopped.

The young constable walked boldly up to the door and said, welcome to Malawi, what did you bring for me?...Tanya replied, “a nice smile?”

He was clearly hoping for little more. I managed to talk my way through that one…showing my police badge and explaining I was a visiting police officer certainly helped…and he sadly let us go.

The next check point was about half an hour on…this time the young sergeant decided I must pay a $2000 kwachas fine, as the were not sufficient reflectors on the rear of our vehicle….but I could pay less if I paid him now! Once again the visiting police officer line worked, and he sadly let his meal ticket drive away.

We stopped for the night and decorated our car in enough reflectors to make it clearly visible from space.

We barley hit the road in the morning and were stopped by another check point, this time they decided that not having two reflector triangles would cost us $3000. The woman constable would not budge, and when her sergeant came over, he was pleased I was a visiting officer…..and because of that I could pay them only $1000, and it would all be OK. Right at that moment Tanya decided to take some photos of the negotiations…which did not go down well!

I finally agreed to pay $1000, so long as I could have a receipt and the name, rank, and number of the officer receipting the fine, as I informed them I wanted to speak to their district commander to ensure all correct procedures had been followed. I explained it was important for me to record their procedures in detail, as I may be able to learn from the way they do their police work.

That worked! We were suddenly best friends, and we could go on our way…they even wanted to pose for a photo for my professional journal!

So, just in case anyone from the Malawi internal affairs reads our blog…..these two idiots tried to extort money from us and were dumb enough to pose in this photo!

We were stopped again that afternoon, and we went through the list, show me reflectors ..OK, show me insurance ..OK, show me reflector triangles…OK….. She was struggling and then came up with a new one that she was sure to catch us out… show me fire extinguisher! (smugly thinking she had just landed her meal ticket!)… she was devastated when I produced one from under the seat!

We drove on joking they will next want to check safety compliance dates on the extinguisher…and guess what they checked at the next stop!

We are currently fitting smoke alarms and escape slides in a desperate attempt to keep ahead!