Stopped by the Cops!?

As a preface to my story I feel like I should explain a bit. During our orientation, CIEE cautioned us on getting into trouble with the cops because jail in South African is much more gruesome than that of America. So already I had this notion that I REALLY didn’t want to go to jail in Africa. I mean it wasn’t a huge concern because I have never been in trouble in the states, but also I am in a new place and still don’t know all the rules.

Anyways so on to my story. Friday night I had an opera performance just like the rest of the week previous. The opera starts at 7:30 and usually wouldn’t finish until at least 10:00pm. Usually Vongani and I would take a shuttle home but sometimes we would miss the timing and Vongani had a friend who would take us. Well on Friday, Vongani’s friend took us home. There were 6 of us crammed into this car so it was pretty cramped and illegal due to seat belt laws. But regardless it wasn’t a long trip so it was supposed to be fine. I was the only foreigner in the car and so I just went along for the ride. Anyways, we got on the road and came across a roadblock. This is where they stop every car. This is when I found out that the driver didn’t have his license and that we were breaking the law in terms of seat belt laws. As we were driving cops were yelling at us because we had too many people in the car. I was pretty scared. It was late and night and I thought for sure I was going to go to jail. I don’t really know why but I didn’t know how it worked. I kept my mouth shut and went with the flow though even though beneath my skin I was petrified.

We finally were pulled over and we all had to get out of the car. The lady cop asked us to go up to the wall and that is when I thought they were going to arrest us. In fact, Vogani put his hands over his head and faced the wall. But fortunately the cop said that wasn’t necessary. She asked to search the car and we were fingerprinted and another cop took our addresses. She apparently didn’t find anything of interest and we were allowed to get back in the car…all six of us…and drive off.

Once back in the car, I still didn’t know what happened. There had been no mention of a fine or misconduct or anything. No one really seemed to know or to care all that much. To me it was a great relief. I have heard stories about the corruption of the cops here and really have tried to avoid them so I am glad that my first run-in left me unscathed and God watched over me.

Though the weirdest thing is that I am not scared of the cops in America. They are a body that is supposed to instil safety so I am not sure why I felt so scared here in South Africa. It poses an interesting question.