the saga continues

I have no idea what to write right now. I wanted to arrive back from my latest jaunt to Totota and triumphantly record a successful finish to our adventure. All's well that ends well, I could quip from behind my mug of tea, content in the knowledge that we'd done the right thing and that everything was okay because of it.

Instead here I am. Another eight hours in the car, (my third trip up that road, and I think I know every pothole by now) and all I'm left with is a sick feeling that I'm trapped in a corrupt system which I'm implicitly making worse.

Saturday didn't pan out quite as we had expected. I've since learned that expectations are a dangerous thing in Liberia. We got to the police station in good time, waited close to an hour for the other people to finish eating fufu and make their way into town, and finally started the case. We sat shoulder to shoulder on a wooden bench in the heat as the traffic cop scrawled a diagram on a rickety chalkboard. It was fairly detailed; even the popholes were marked. The format was vague. The hearing consisted of different people being allowed to give their opinions or ask questions at seemingly randomly assigned points. The cops shook their heads and pored over photos of the accident scene we'd brought with us. They agreed that a skid mark of six metres probably wasn't made by someone only going twenty kilometers an hour. The man next to me patted me on the shoulder and whispered It's a simple case. Don't worry.

The cops left the station (a rented room with two battered wooden desks at the front and a window behind us through which at least ten people were watching the proceedings) to confer with one another. We felt relieved. It was clearly going to go in our favour. The cops agreed that the other man had been in our lane initially, which was clearly what had caused the accident.

In the five minutes they were outside, something changed. I don't know what happened, but they came back inside and had Lourens and Junior (the driver of the taxi) stand as they pronounced solemnly that Lourens was at fault and would be charged with three counts of reckless driving and misuse of lane and something else. Regardless of the fact that the other driver had been blatantly lying. Regardless of the fact that the damage on both cars showed clearly that the other driver had been in our lane when he hit us. It didn't really matter at that point. All that mattered was that our friend, who had saved our lives, was being charged for a crime and could possibly go to jail for it.

It was here that the intricacies of the Liberian justice system really started to kick in. In a nutshell, it turns out that when a person is charged with a crime like this, the trial would eventually deal with criminal and civil charges. And provided you can settle the civil charges with the wounded party (in our case, replace their taxi) the criminal charges get dropped. We sat down with their lawyer in a dark restaurant next to the police room. (Station seems almost too grand a word for it.) As we settled into our plastic chairs, the passenger from the taxi, the man who had been taken away for stitches, spoke up. Please remember, he reminded his lawyer, that these people are our brothers and our sisters. We have no fight with them. This woman here took care of me. They are good people. At which point I made a mental note never to ignore the prompting of the Spirit, and the negotiations proceeded.

It was decided that they would all return to Monrovia on Tuesday, when a suitable replacement car would be found. They did, and it was. It was decided that, once they had agreed to the car, they would sign documents stating that they released all claims on Lourens. They did this too. (I happened upon the meeting last night as I came from dinner, and ended up playing secretary and getting yet another Kpelle name assigned to me. Keymah. This one, I think, means Whitey. I'll stick with Yongo.) While we seem to be paying a lot of extra charges here and there (why we're covering the bags of charcoal that the police seized is beyond me), none of it seemed too high a price for our friend's freedom.

All that remained was the trip today. We were to go to Totota, speak the the police, hand over the waiver and receive in return Lourens' license and freedom. And it would all be over. Which, of course, is not what happened.

We narrowly missed being in another horrific accident on the way to Totota in the morning (and by narrowly, I mean had we not taken the three or so seconds to switch drivers, we would have been t-boned by a pickup truck and I would have more to worry about than a bruised leg) but drove the rest of the way without incident. The policeman was not in the station when we arrived, so we spent over an hour wandering around the town and waiting. While drinking a coke, we happened upon a man who had been guarding a checkpoint some fifteen minutes up the road from the accident. He remembered me from the car, and told me I was a foolish girl to ride with my feet up like that and no wonder I got hurt. I must have taken my feet down from the dash much later than I thought, and once again breathed a silent prayer to my Protector.

Finally things were underway, the lawyer, James, interceding on our behalf, and it looked as though things were going to come to a conclusion. The papers were signed and practically in the act of being handed over, when the final blow came. Another policeman, this one higher up the chain of command, showed up and demanded that the proceedings stop immediately. We had no choice but to comply.

And so here we are. Waiting, yet again, to find out our fate. No idea how much more money or time or resources are going to be involved. And, with the exception of the passenger from that taxi (the one who could well have died) and a strange man in a down parka and galoshes who stood on the steps of the police station berating the cop for persecuting us when we've done no wrong, no one in this country seems to be on our side.

I don't know if it's because we're white. Would this all have gone differently if the colour of our skin didn't look like dollar bills to these policemen? I have no idea. I'm tired and I'm sore and I want this all to be over, because I'm frustrated with the whole thing.

Soon, please.


(And don't even get me started on the man we picked up off the side of the road to carry to a hospital, the one who tried very hard to snuggle up to me despite the seriously serious pain in his foot. He's a whole different story.)