I am lugging a heavy bagful of books.

“Tssss! Tssss!”
Ignore.
Many people say 'tssss tsss' in the city centre.
At night it’s the hookers, by day it’s somebody trying to sell you a chinese watch and some very dodgy looking ganja.

“WEWE!!! NGOJA!!” [You!! Wait!!]
Ulp, it’s a fat policeman in fatigues – tapping my arm with a baton.
“Why didn’t you stop?”
Sorry, I had headphones on.
“What are you carrying in that bag?” poking my bag with the rubber baton.
Books.
“Show me!”
You can check it yourself, I say handing the bag to him.
“WACHA!!! You open it and show me!” steps back warily – probably thinks I ‘m carrying some explosive contraband.
I show the books to him – satisfied?
“Show me your ID!”
I show him my driving license.
“Hapana![No!] Your ID, you know ID?”
Damn, left it at home.
“Come with me!”

“Where are you from? Baghdaad??” he asks, leading me to a tin/steel shed – that serves as the police post.
I should have had that haircut and shaven my beard, when I had the chance.
It’s a pleasant 30 degrees centigrade outside, but it’s a boiling 45 degrees underneath the tin roofed shed.
There’s another cop inside, lying slumped on a chair, in a heat induced coma.
He wakes up, and stares at me with bleary eyes, and then starts to pick his nose with a ballpoint pen.
I know I am in trouble, instantly.

A good-cop/bad-cop routine follows:

Comatose Cop:
It’s an extremely serious crime to walk around without proper identification. VERY seriaaas.
Cop in fatigues:
But, he looks like a decent man (glances at me in a brotherly, solicitous way). He just forgot.

Comatose Cop:
We have to take him to the police station to question him. (shakes his head, glares at me with poorly disguised hostility)
Cop in fatigues:
We could let him go with a small “spot fine”.

Comatose Cop:
Aaaay, this maan is NOT carrying his ID (now addresses me directly, with shocking belligerence) WHY are you walking here? WHERE are you going?

He wants to throw the book at me.

Think.
Think.
The hot steel walls are bare, except for a small taped cardboard cutout of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. Only divine intervention can save me now.

I am going to err…umm… church. Yes! I am going to church – I reply with exaggerated confidence.

“What?” (both of them in chorus) “You go to church?!”
Yes, sir, I am actually getting late for mass.

They look incredulously at me, and then at each other.
I start repeating a fairly accurate rendition of Psalm 23 (3 years of convent schooling, finally paid out after all these years)
“The lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…..”

Comatose Cop, all befuddlement and suspicion, interrupts my sermon: “Which church do you go to?”
The "lighthouse" church of Gikomba.

What I am suggesting is so preposterous, that he actually believes me.
(Gikomba is a huge open-air, second-hand goods market – a place, which for some unspeakable reason is considered a no-go for foreigners.)

A bit reluctantly, they set me free.
“Carry your ID next time…” with mild malevolence.
“God bless you officers…”
They look embarrassed.

I switch on Massive Attack and head for a beer.