Sylvia and I were driving (well, I was the driver) to ABC, where the UNC soccer team plays, when we were flagged down by a police officer. It wasn’t like we did anything wrong, they were stopping everybody. I was a little concerned because we had just dropped Sonali off at the bus stop and we were running a little late for the 8:30am game, which turns out was postponed to 10 unannounced to us. So we pulled over, thinking it would be a 5-minute process, when the police officer takes my license and informs us that all of our insurance stickers had expired last week. I checked the stickers and he was telling the truth. This is not something we as trainees are responsible for since it’s a UNC car, and I had recently been told a story where someone almost went to jail for expired insurance so I was worried. Plus I was the driver so I would be the one rotting in a cell. I called my boss and after about 15 minutes of back-and-forth I was instructed to pay him no more than MK3000 and that UNC would not let me go to jail, very reassuring. I've seen people bribe before but I've never been the one handing over the cash. I'm a little torn on the issues of bribes - on the one hand it fuels corruption but on the other hand this guy needs to feed his family and probably hasn't gotten paid in months. Kind of like a waitressing job where you get paid nothing but get topped off on tips... not that I've waitressed before either.
So anyways, I talk to the guy and he says that the fine is MK20,000 – 10,000 for the expired insurance and 5,000 for each person in the car. WOW, that’s a little over $60. We told him we only had 3,000, which was dumb, we should have said lower but I just wanted to get out of there, I hate bargaining. He said it was okay and that we were “helping each other out,” but that he wouldn’t be able to get a cash receipt since we didn’t pay the actual fine. Darn it, I really wanted to get reimbursed from the project for this expenditure. He then instructed me on how to properly hand him the money with the 100s out and folded lots of times. I found this funny, I've never been involved in shady money transfers. Finally, we were on our way. Unfortunately we didn’t go to the game – no one would pick us up from the guesthouse – but on the bright side I didn’t go to jail.
So anyways, I talk to the guy and he says that the fine is MK20,000 – 10,000 for the expired insurance and 5,000 for each person in the car. WOW, that’s a little over $60. We told him we only had 3,000, which was dumb, we should have said lower but I just wanted to get out of there, I hate bargaining. He said it was okay and that we were “helping each other out,” but that he wouldn’t be able to get a cash receipt since we didn’t pay the actual fine. Darn it, I really wanted to get reimbursed from the project for this expenditure. He then instructed me on how to properly hand him the money with the 100s out and folded lots of times. I found this funny, I've never been involved in shady money transfers. Finally, we were on our way. Unfortunately we didn’t go to the game – no one would pick us up from the guesthouse – but on the bright side I didn’t go to jail.
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