Arrested Development

Last night, I had an interesting run-in with local law enforcement. I was walking in the city at approximately 9:00pm (which means that it was pitch black) with another intern from work. We were trying to find a tro-tro station, and so we were asking around for directions. As we made our way to the station, we inadvertently stepped on what turned out to be an extremely troublesome patch of grass. As we soon discovered, there happened to be a small (and I mean, small) wooden sign that warned people to keep off the grass (or pay a GH¢10 fine, equivalent to about $8 CDN). We were waved over to speak with a Ghanaian police officer, who was ... ummm ... not very pleasant. Despite our apologies, he insisted on taking us to the police station so we could pay our fine.

This is when things got a little weird. The police officer walked us to the station (which turned out to be about two hours away on foot, though we didn't know it at the time). During the walk, he suggested that it would be a good idea if we could gather all our money so we could pay the fine (which was supposedly in the range of hundreds of dollars). He also walked us by other police officers (including one very pleasant police sergeant), and introduced us as his "friends" (not wanting to create conflict, we just smiled and nodded). He also told us (repeatedly) a story about how he was deported from a country (Canada? US?) for ... stepping in a flower bed? ...not having his papers in order? He was not very clear, and the details seemed to change in each of his seven or so retellings of the story. I can't help but doubt the veracity of his claims - for example, he said that he was a horse jockey (and this was not a small man). It was odd, though - despite our situation, at no point did I feel my safety was threatened. We were always by a main road, and surrounded by people at all times.

It was certainly a harrowing experience, but all is well that ends well. We didn't cave, and ended up being sent home in a taxi (without paying any fine!). The police officer (who basically performed a solo good-cop-bad-cop routine) gave us his phone number, and told us that we should call him so he could "take us to see the waterfalls and elephants". We returned home safely, and managed to keep a good sense of humor about the whole thing.

Just to be clear, in no way do I believe that we should have been held above the law just because we were foreigners. However, when there were other people who were walking through the grass (just ahead of us!), I think it was understandable that we would have assumed it was lawful to do the same.

In other news, I've officially been in Ghana for a week! It's hard to believe, because the time went by incredibly quickly. The work environment at CEPIL is fantastic; my co-workers (both Ghanian and North American) are great people (plus, y'know, there's air-conditioning).

The water is out in Accra this weekend (word is that a turbine needs to be replaced), so I'm contemplating a retreat to one of the multitude of nearby beach towns.