There was a police officer at the ferry, and one or two onlookers. But apart from that it was surprisingly quiet. The police officer ordered one of the onlookers to go and get the captain. We sat down and waited in police guy's little hut. He was nervous and young. We joked around a bit with the people who were asking for money and cadeaux. Annoying, but not as pushy and aggresive as we were used to by now.
The policy guy then told us we had to register. We did not feel much like it, but hey, if he wants to copy over all of our details in his little book, why not. When he was done he asked for money as he had registered us. We politely told him that registration is not a paying service in Congo. It never had been.
That's not true he said, it is an integral part of his job to ask for money from people who pass trough here. We had a chuckle but stayed polite and told him that if that is the case, then why is it not in writing anywhere.
He then caught us by surprise by claiming it is written in the official police handbook! He got up, and got out this little black book. It was titled something along the line of "Official guidelines for Police officers in the RDC" (not sure about exact title).
The first chapter were the 'ten commandments' of the police officers, the third item read:
"Créer une base de données de tous les voyageurs dans votre regio"
He read it for us and said:
"Créer une base de donnes de tous les voyageurs dans votre regio"
"Create a base of donations from all travellers in your region"
We couldn't believe what we heard. Had they really constitutionalized corruption? If this was true we would have little choice but to pay.
In disbelief we took the book out of his hands and read the phrase again. Yes, it was really written here...
It took us a minute before we realised that it was not "donne" (pronounced "don", like in Don Quichote) but "donnée" (pronounced don-E).
What was actually written was:
"Create a database of all travellers in your region"
We had to try very hard to keep our laughter down. At first we tought he just tricked us into it. But that was not the case, he genuinely believed it was written that he had to collect money from travellers. He had no idea what a database was.
