Arjen Westra’s African Weblog

‘Drivers license!’ My taxidriver Isaac just opened his window and puts on his most innocent face. Alcoholdamp enters the car. ‘What do you think? I am just coming from Thika to bring my friend here to the airport. I just forgot it.’ The car is closed in by three police officers. I notice. One of them , an old guy, is trying to intimidate Isaac. None of the agents have badges with their employee numbers. ‘When you see them like that, you know it’s wrong’ says Isaac. I know he’s right. Police in Kenya has a bad reputation. I recently travelled to Netherlands. It was in the weekend before the World Social Forum: tens of thousands of people were expected and… they had to be transported from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to their hotels and… they are paying the taxi drivers cash, and… this means that taxi drivers carry a lot of cash… and this means that when they are stopped by police these guys could easily remove some money from the taxi drivers’ pockets… ‘Which means, that a lot of taxi drivers, normally to be recognised by the yellow ribbon on the car, nowadays don’t want to be recognised as a taxi’, Isaac says. The World Social Forum means that it’s party time at the roadblock. And I think he’s right. Isaac refuses, the police man steps aside. Behind me I see another driver handing over his drivers license…