Bribery: fun for you and me

Okay, I forgot to include perhaps one of the more interesting parts of our Kruger trip, behind the almost-being-crushed-by-an-elephant bit. Also important to note: not my fault.

Kruger National Park is sort of like my mother: it has a lot of rules. (If you're reading this, Mom, I love you! <333 I admire your moral integrity!) But what are rules, really? Just jotted-down commandments. Given by squares. You can read the set of rules and immediately forget them. As a former Montessori School child, I thoroughly appreciate the genius of hands-on learning (time for off-color joke? I think so). You have to really see something in action to learn about it. So I guess the following experience more or less taught us another of the park's rules.

So when you have lions, elephants, kudu, rhinos, impala, whathaveyou, running around on your drive-through reservation, a speeding car can be bad news. Let me just say, I was not the one driving. I'm going to deny any sort of involvement here, because I never break the rules.

We got pulled over going 70 km in a 50 km zone as we rushed to get back to camp by gate-closing time. 50 k's is the maximum speed allowed in the park. Ugh. I totally would convert that to miles, but a) I don't think it's necessary, and b) why are we like the only country that hasn't hopped on the Metric System bandwagon? Frustrating. At first, it was a little scary. Were we going to get arrested? Sent to Guantanamo Bay? Sent to Siberia? My imagination, per usual, was working slightly overtime.

Turns out, the Kruger Park policeman guy just wanted to issue a ticket to the tune of R400, payable upon our departure. He seemed genuinely confused as to why someone would speed in the park. I mean, hey, we aren't PETA activists.

Anyway, the following day we got packed up to leave. We drove to the exit gate and showed our Confirmation slip to the guard there (they're really particular about this slip that shows you've paid for lodging during your stay), and he lifted up the gate to let us pass.

Then Nick's morals got in the way.

"I got a traffic ticket yesterday, so I probably need to pay that," he said.

"What kind of ticket?" the guard asked. "Did you have a fine?" He asked to see the slip of paper.

It was odd because there are so many things in life that are NOT like the movies. For example, kissing. Not nearly as fun as it looks in films. (Or... maybe I've just been kissing frogs? If you're interested and, more importantly, talented, please don't hesitate to give me a call.) Working out also looks cute enough in movies, but of course it's torture IRL. And I think the whole bribery scenario is widespread enough to have made its mark in several Hollywood films. What I'm trying to say is, I've seen several movie scenes about bribery. And, unlike kissing, the degree of attractiveness of people or working out, bribery is... the same in movies and in real life.

"So... you have to pay R400?" the guard said. We nodded. He leaned closer to our car.

"Tell you what," he said. "How about you pay me R260? Don't go in there [motioning to the main office] and pay them R400. You win, I win."

We looked at each other for a few seconds. Nick asked me what I thought we should do. I'm bad at making spur-of-the-moment decisions, plus I missed the "How to successfully bribe government officials" lecture in PoliSci.

In the end, R260 was handed over to the guard. He promised to rip up the pink slip, and we hoped the bribery charges wouldn't haunt us forever, barring us from entering South Africa in the future. I highly doubt it'll happen based on what I've heard about the SA police force, but something like this could really ruin, say, a U.S. political career. Hm.

However, an important lesson was learned: political corruption does exist. Also, we totally could have left Kruger without paying anything, but then someone had to mention the traffic ticket (j/k). Oh, and I lost my innocence.