Race car
Waving with a press card
A few kilometers outside Oruro the Bolivian highway – at least what passes for a highway in this country – was transformed into a race circuit.
My godson’s father was driving and an eager and rather aggressive policeman confiscated his driver’s license for the illegally cossing the circuit.
After that the policeman started hitting my godson’s father.
At that moment the volunteer from the Netherlands and I stepped out of the car, and I showed the policeman my American press card.
He stopped being aggressive but he was not willing to return the driver’s license.
Out of boredom and because I tend to have problems with certain kinds of authority I started taking pictures of the policeman, while waving with my press card in between.
After the race was over we did get the driver’s license back.
Sometimes the cover of a journalist pays off.
(Below I attach a picture from the gold I bought. And the ceremony that came with the sale. The gold had to be blessed with warm beer.)
Jan Thys
The policeman was rather abusive.Mr. Grunberg, have you seen the film Babel? I highly recommend it, your experience matches the feel of that film.
(un) diplomacy
I once met a rather young guy working at the Dutch ambassy of Bern, here in the south of France. He had a rather good drink and a rather good hand in driving his splendid new Ferrari. Covered for Gendarme-nuise - i suppose - by his diplomatic pass but only by luck for better or worse, i suppose...In some countries showing your American press card will result in kidnap & decapitation.
Love the new meaning you gave to “a little green bag”.
Aliefka,
Besides the presence of an aggressive policeman (something which applies to many situations) I don’t see any resembles to Babel.
Race Car
From L.A. to the Sea of Cortez, driving thru Mexico was sometimes scary.We (my cuz and I) drove in a convertible VW through Cali, when we were stopped by two Mexican policemen. With a little green bag hidden in the ashtray (which at that moment I knew nothing about) and two policemen smiling for the prospect of accepting a possible bribe (there´s always a payoff), I showed my Dutch passport (we´re talking ´88). In it was a Mexican Visa issued by the Mexican consul which was returned to me with a signed busines card ! It proved it´s worth in gold when those cops looked a it. With a weird kind of salute they took a step back , mumbled something in Spanishand disappeared.
When my cuz told me he had the little bag in the ashtray, so we could enjoy the mating whales in the Sea of Cortez, I could not restrain myself....
Although I´m not prone to violence, at that point I kicked the shit out of him.....
does anybody understand that?
Once I got into a similar situation with a friend. I did not beat him (although I left the need) but after I took a good distance. He got into trouble more and more. An ex friend.
Life involves taking risks, better calculate them carefully, so even in failure we cannot blame ourselves for being merely stupid. My sympathy.
