Mzungus in the mist


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Africa » Uganda » Western Region » Fort Portal
November 9th 2011
Published: November 9th 2011
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Or maybe you can translate the word ’mist’ into German and you can get the real meaning of the heading..

This really is how about things can go from bad to worse with the help of the Ugandan Police Force. To start things off we got mugged, all our cash was gone from backpacks etc. Fair enough since we are travelling in Africa and these things happen, and maybe would be strange if it didn’t happen since we are travelling with locals and making own path through Africa.

Now come in the police and something that seemed should take a day or two to figure out turned into a weeklong nightmare. It turns out that the police are very keen on bribery and as we got to go further into this and got talking to more and more locals we found out how bad the situation really is here. Everyone wanted to have money for small thinks which is kind of clear that it is free, for example some kind of information.

For the police to do anything, simply put you need to pay for it and in a country like this with a high percentage of the locals earning very little they are unable to afford to pay the police, ambulance when they arrive and we have found out that this causes many deaths, one just a four days ago along the road where we are staying. This is quite terrible that the human rights doesn’t exist and if you are in a trouble so you don’t have chance (if you don’t have money for the corruption) to get out the problem. Actually we have heard that many criminals pay money for the policemen to avoid the right results which could lead to the true and solution of the problem… unfortunately this could be our case as well.

OK, to our situation and what happened - things stolen and it is fair enough. Well this happens and we have to accept the fact but of course it is hard to lose at least four months budget in Africa. Police guy turns up (getting paid for the transportation on arrival by a friends of our) and we give out statements which was easy enough and at this stage we were quite happy. Now the forensic officer arrives in his white coat, brief case to take finger prints (and again our friends have to pay for the transportation). Well he did forget to bring the correct tools for to fingerprint the suspects (and his gloves since he was touching everything with his own fingers) and turned our room into a dust bowl. It didn’t look professional at all but we decided to record into the camera how he is working in case the insurance company would require for it but later on we could prove how this police lie about his own job.

By this stage we were still thinking we could trust the police as we had just arrived and not heard what happens, the forensic guy said he needed to take our passports and credit card, papers, bag and the razor. They should take in with to Kampala to put in a machine and scan for better results. We of course said, yeah no worries… what ever helps… Our friend pays him for transportation, accommodation, food etc in Kampala and of he goes promising to arrive at 7am the next morning to finger print the key suspects.

10am arrives and he is ready to finger print the suspects, not before another hour of discussion, he gets underway. Soon though they realize that two suspects are missing but we thought we were lucky as a police officer was also present so he could go and pick them up. The conversation went like this:

Us – ‘Hey could you go and pick the two suspects up, please?’
Police – ‘No!’
Us – ‘Oh how come?’
Police – ‘It is too far!’
Us – ‘Ohh ok, how far is it? 20-30km?’
Police – ‘No 2km!’
Us – ‘Well maybe we should pack you a lunch because it is a tiring trip?’
Police – ‘….’

He even had a police motor bike with him but this is how things work here… for him to go and get the suspects friend even had to pay for it once again.

Well we could ramble on about many other things that happened, many police payments and arguments every step we took into this case over the next four days but three main things really stick in our mind:

The first, when we went to the police station to get our police report as we need for travel insurance they wanted 62,000 Uganda shillings each. Actually we couldn’t stop laughed at their office and the policemen laughed by himself, and they realized how pathetic they sound. We were standing with empty pockets because our ALL money was stolen and they are asking for 62,000 Uganda shillings EACH.

The second, the forensic guy who took our passports etc to scan in the machine wouldn’t return them without extra payment which we are not completely sure how much it turned out to be, after five days we got it all back. We were surprised that he couldn’t understand that we had all our cash stolen (since he was on the crime scene) and he had out credit card so getting any money would be quite difficult. As well we needed to cancel all credit cards in case the police would try to steel our money from them.

The third, the results from the finger prints came back negative of course for all the suspects. We all knew it would be like this but interesting to go along for the whole journey. But they did say they found three identifiable sets of fingerprints, Chris’s and two unknown ones. The funny thing is here that all the things that went to be scanned were in Diana’s bag and Chris doesn’t use it at all. Even the razor blade used to apparently have nothing on it? This proves how professional police is working in Uganda.

Well it has been interesting and finding out firsthand what the situation is like here for someone in need in this country makes us realize the back home, our police are FANTASTIC! Of course this has been a horrible journey through corruption in Uganda but we have learnt and appreciating our countries much more afterwards. When you are going through everything by yourself (not your friend) this kind of stuff so you are growing a lot. However we have nothing to regret since we wouldn’t change anything if we could turn the time back. If you would have some problems with Uganda police so never rely on them and make sure that you would be involved personal in every step they are making. Well you have a bigger chance and faster process to solve the problem if you are personal involved.




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9th November 2011

ROBBED IN AFRICA...ALWAYS MAKES A GOOD STORY
Fortunately you only lost money (not your passports)and could continue your trip...great story...and surprised they let you film it...that's a bonus..!

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