Lusaka's Finest

I had the pleasure of visiting Lusaka’s finest last week while working in Zambia. One of the shining stars I had hired to do data collection work in the country managed to lose, within just a few hours, the $300 phone I had given her to collect and submit survey data during her field work. An excellent way to start, indeed. I didn’t have any hope of actually finding the phone with the help of the police, but in what has turned out to be 2011’s best decision, I had gotten insurance on the phone, and I figured a police report would help my case in reclaiming some of the phone’s value. Damn, you’re smart, David.

So on Saturday morning, I was off to the police station to report the phone as lost/stolen. If I had to rank top places to avoid while travelling in a developing country, a police station would surely make the list. It wouldn’t beat out a market bus station which I’d consider the worst –something along the rating of “I’d rather give my eyeball 15 paper cuts” – but it’d score very well, maybe one paper cut. Not so much because of the actual locations of these stations, but because there aren’t any positive reasons why you’d have to visit a police station and, well, you’ll probably leave the station with a stronger feeling of hopelessness and hatred than when you arrived (maybe this isn’t unique to the developing world?). I have to say, though, my recent visit wasn’t all that bad, probably because I didn’t really go in with a desperate feeling of “please help me!!” which would have surely led to very painful disappointment, and because I found the detective and the entire process to be pretty humorous.

I walked in to the small cement house, painted police blue, that sat in the shadow of Manda Hill, Lusaka’s upscale shopping mall, and found four people behind a large reception desk, all looking at me like I was some criminal. But after briefly explaining what had happened and what I was hoping to do, I was pleasantly ushered back into a bare office that offered a school desk, two desk chairs that had seen better days roughly fifteen years ago, and three remarkably huge case books with dusty black leather covers and pages upon pages of handwritten, unorganized notes of Lusaka’s previous crimes. Detective Nathan was in charge and told me to sit in one of the chairs as he flipped through one case book to find the next free page. He was a big boy wearing a shirt one size too small that had two cigarette burn like holes in the front, each of them just large enough to distractingly reveal bare skin. Apparently no uniform is required for detectives. Or maybe it’s casual Saturday.

He finds his page and asks me a series of basic questions, referring to me as “Americano.” Americano, when did you lose the phone? Where? What was the phone number? Do you have the serial number of the phone, Americano? He copies my answers into the book with, in my opinion, rather sloppy handwriting and as he’s writing my answers down, he continues to ask completely unrelated and absurd questions.

How does Lusaka compare to Texas? Hmmm...that’s a pretty tough one. Texas is very big and its major cities have huge populations. He sees me struggling to answer and gives me an easy out “so you can’t compare Lusaka with Texas?” No, you cannot, detective. Americano, you know Mike Tyson? He doesn’t have any money now? I would have laughed out loud at this one. Mike Tyson!!!?? But he asks me with a very concerned and troubled tone, like he’s pained by Mike’s reckless fall from grace and riches, and so I keep my straight face and very gently confirm to him that yes, Mike Tyson basically lost all his money at one point, but then reassure him that he’s slowly getting back on two feet. I ask if he’s seen Tyson’s starring and comeback role in The Hangover. Detective Nathan has not seen it, but he jots down the title of the movie so that he may remember and see it soon.

After jotting down all relevant notes about the phone, Texas, and Mike Tyson, Detective Nathan tells me he will do his best to recover the phone but will require a payment to “move around the city while investigating.” Excellent. I ask him how much he requires, and after a very long and considered pause, he says the equivalent of $35. I let out a small laugh and ask him if he’s planning on “moving around the city” in a limo. He smiles at this but doesn’t come down in his offer. I tell him I’ll pay him his amount if he can also provide some sort of report or paper that says that I have legitimately filed a case with the Zambian police, which is really all I need for the insurance (I have no hope after seeing the scribbled case notes that the phone will be pursued at all, much less recovered). He agrees and after payment (which turns out to be closer to $40 because surprisingly, Detective Nathan can’t come up with the change I need) has Officer Banda fill out a photocopied form that’s about as professional looking as what you could expect from a group of third graders playing cops and robbers. But it does provide the official Zambian police stamp, which just may do the trick for the insurance company.

I bid farewell to Detective Nathan and his comrades, still hopeless for the recovery of the phone and $40 poorer, yet feeling pretty good about what I purchased with that $40 – a form I can turn into the insurance company, a lunch or two for the entire station, possibly a new shirt for Detective Nathan, and with any luck two hours of laughter for Detective Nathan as he watches The Hangover. Not a bad purchase, and certainly enough to move “police station” down a few rungs on the top places to avoid when travelling list. Thank you, Detective.