Everybody heard the stories about Nairobi where somebody got mugged. And sure enough somebody tried to steal my phone while we were sitting in a traffic jam yesterday evening. But the story I want to tell is not the typical robbery but the kind of robbery you don't hear everyday.
We, that is my brother in law and his wife and their kid and my wife, were sitting in the traffic jam that fills up Nairobi streets 24 hours these days, when somebody cut in in front of us and tried to squeez his huge car by our huge car. Of course a self inflicted scratch happend and traffic police was quick here to wave us away since obviously it wasn't our fault, we couldn't go backwards or forwards we just had to watch how this guy scratched his car at ours.
Now being waved on this guy didn't like it and made his driver follow us. Called his connection in the Nairobi police force and we were considered guilty. After some negotiation the guy asked 12,500/= KSH from us approximately 135$ for a paint job which should cost you around 15$ and my brother in law had to haggle with the guy down to 6,000/= KSH (=65$) to keep some of our holiday money.
The bribe money was handed over in front of our faces to the police who got around 1,000-2,000 KSH while the other guy went away with the money for a repair he wont do until he got more than enough money out of innocent people so he finally can do it for 15$.
Well we had to shorten our trip and my wife couldn't do any shopping .. but hey now I know the true style of a Nairobi robbery.
Sorry this is more of a rant but I'm on holidays more Swahili lessons when I'm back in TZ.
Yours truly Joel
We, that is my brother in law and his wife and their kid and my wife, were sitting in the traffic jam that fills up Nairobi streets 24 hours these days, when somebody cut in in front of us and tried to squeez his huge car by our huge car. Of course a self inflicted scratch happend and traffic police was quick here to wave us away since obviously it wasn't our fault, we couldn't go backwards or forwards we just had to watch how this guy scratched his car at ours.
Now being waved on this guy didn't like it and made his driver follow us. Called his connection in the Nairobi police force and we were considered guilty. After some negotiation the guy asked 12,500/= KSH from us approximately 135$ for a paint job which should cost you around 15$ and my brother in law had to haggle with the guy down to 6,000/= KSH (=65$) to keep some of our holiday money.
The bribe money was handed over in front of our faces to the police who got around 1,000-2,000 KSH while the other guy went away with the money for a repair he wont do until he got more than enough money out of innocent people so he finally can do it for 15$.
Well we had to shorten our trip and my wife couldn't do any shopping .. but hey now I know the true style of a Nairobi robbery.
Sorry this is more of a rant but I'm on holidays more Swahili lessons when I'm back in TZ.
Yours truly Joel