License, Registration, and Marriage License Please

Traffic police in Tanzania are an interesting thing. Their job description rarely includes enforcing the law. They do however set up random checkpoints along the road to check people’s official information. It doesn’t make much sense… but then again I’m in Africa, does anything make much sense?

So one day I was driving to visit a friend. As I was driving, I encountered a check point. Lucky me, I got pulled over. He asked for my license and I willingly gave it. He responded with, “Is this real?” Well of course it’s real! And if it’s fake, I’m surely not going to tell you that. He continues to check the blinkers on my car, which is the first time they have ever done this to me. Sadly, one of my blinkers was broken. He wasn’t too happy about that. I also had a broken side view mirror because some thieves tried to take it one night. He didn’t approve of that either. (Which I find funny considering every car I see driving around Dar looks like it’s about to fall apart. At least mine is all in one piece!) So we weren’t off to a very good start here.

He asked if I had a police report to prove that the thieves broke the mirror. Well, yes I have a police report, but it’s not with me. Well where is it? It’s at my office. And he says… where do you work? Now this can either be a good thing or a bad thing. If he likes Baptist people, I’m home free. If not, I could be in seriously trouble. But I proceeded to tell him, I work for the Baptist Mission of Tanzania. He responded with, Oh, do you know Jesus? And I said, Yes. Do you? He said, Tell me about him! So I then shared the gospel with the man. And he responded with, “You’re lying!” Uh oh! This situation is getting worse by the minute. So I tried to convince him I wasn’t lying and that all of it was in the Bible, which he said he believed in.

So after all of this, he finally looks at me and says, “Are you married?” Ha! Here it comes! This is what he was working towards the whole time. I chuckled and said No, not yet. I’m too young to marry. He said, No! You should be married and have two kids by now! I laughed and said I was waiting for God to bring me the right husband. He said, God has brought me to you. I want to marry you! I laughed even more and said, You don’t want to marry me! I’m a lazy mzungu. He said, But I like mzungu. I said, No you need to marry a nice Tanzanian woman who will work very hard. I won’t work very hard. I am too lazy. He says, It’s okay. I don’t like to work either. Haha. Surprise surprise!

At this point, I am getting more and more worried that he’s not going to return my license to me. But I politely turned down his nice marriage proposal. He asked for my number. I said no again and asked if I could leave. He smiled and said, It was nice to meet you. And praise the Lord, I drove off! Another fun-filled day in Africa.