The battle between the police and the people has been going on since time immemorial. One that many of us got to experience first hand during this period of protests. From being splashed with water at high pressure, to being directly shot at with tear gas. The live and rubber bullets shot at us, and of course, the traditional caning by the rough wooden rungus.
Well, for me it happened to be just any other weekend at the local. Little did I know that my friends and I would end up in a mariamu that would take us all the way to the police station. Not to plead my case but I was quite innocent. Come on, I just happened to be outside the local, eating some smokies, when the police van stopped.
Three police alighted and hurled all who were in the vicinity inside the vehicle. Well, all my friends were there. As I was busy munching away my munchies, some of them were busy getting into a fight at the other corner of the street. And of course, you never lack the arguing couple somewhere, too, hurling insults at each other.
At the police station, we made our way past the front desk, where one would normally report to the police officers on shift and subsequently be written down in the occurrence book (OB). One of the guards wrote down our names on a sheet of paper. The charges: drunk and disorderly. Then we were taken to a big cell. Whew! The stench of urine was everywhere. But it was a bit exciting, hmmm tumeshikwa, tuko ndani. We weren’t alone, actually the other wafungwa seemed pretty comfortable.
Every man for himself. People started making calls as they were demanding ‘bail’ of Sh1,000 from each of us. I called my cousin and he sent me Sh2,000. No way in hell would I call my parents. Some of my friends went into panic mode but as for me, I was as calm as a millpond.
Several times, they came around threatening us that we would spend the whole weekend there if we didn’t cooperate. To make things worse, Monday was a holiday, so Tuesday would be the next time you got out.
I thought only in business is where you bargain prices. My other friend ended up bargaining that the ‘bail’ be lowered to Sh600 and they budged. It seemed they just wanted ‘za weekend’.
After spending two hours inside the cell, we were released. It was a very thrilling moment to say the least. We even ended up getting acquainted with the police officers after the whole fracas was over.