Stories of Our Encounters with the National Police

“Not another police check!” I groaned to myself as the National Policeman pulled me over to the side of the road. Pryaing it wouldn’t be one of the police who wanted a bribe, I produced the car’s registration, my Iowa driver’s license, my international driver’s license, my passport, and my visa. The policeman checked the registration against the license plate, and examined my license. “Where are you going?” he asked. I answered that I was going to San Pedro Sula, and then, hoping that he would let me move on quickly if I told him about my work, explaining that I was coming from Piñalejo where I had been working with malnourished children in the nutrition center there. “Hey!” he said. “I’m malnourished! Give me some food, too!” Looking at his large girth, I laughed with the policeman, and reached into the back seat and handed him a tamarind and plantain that one of the mother’s in the village had given me. Still laughing at his joke, the policeman accepted my gift. “Pasa, pasa,” he said. “Move on.”
I made the u-turn as I had hundreds of times before, and as I had seen others do also hundreds of times before. In Honduras u-turns are the way that you get to businesses on the other side of the meridian. The policeman pulled me over. He explained that I would have to surrender my license, pay a fee and go down to the traffic office to get back my license. He asked if was living in Honduras. I explained that I was. “Do you have a residence visa?” he asked. I told him we were working on it. “Well, you won’t get it if I give you this ticket,” he said. “It will show that you aren’t following the laws of Honduras. I better show you how to do this turn instead of giving you a ticket.” Then, he opened the door and got in the car! With careful explanations he demonstrated that it was legal to drive a short ways down the wrong side of the road to get to the entrance to the school, but not to do a u-turn in an intersection with a light if there wasn’t an arrow. We drove the loop two times before he was satisfied that I knew how to operate the car. He got out, wished me a good day and drove off on his motorcycle.
Pulled over for the second time in ten minutes, Bruce and I groaned to each other. “I think it’s the new truck,” Bruce said. “They want to make sure that we have all the paperwork.” We produced all the requested documents. “Everything is in order,” the policeman said. Then, “do you have twenty lempiras that you can give me to get to El Progreso? My police car ran out of gas.” We looked at each other incredulously. Begging from police officers. This was a new one! I knew, because we had just bought a newspaper and paid the toll, that Bruce had exactly one lempira in his wallat. “Look in your wallet,” I said. “I think he’s a little low on cash.” I kicked my purse under my feet, out of sight, full of the rent money and cash to pay the utiltities. “Just one lempira,” Bruce said. The policeman looked disappointed, then allowed us to pass.
“Jefe! (chief)” called the policeman. We looked at each other, wondering what he wanted. On our way to Subirana he had stopped us and asked us for all of our paperwork. Why was he stopping us now, again, on our way back home? He pointed down the road, giving directions. We didn’t understand why, or where exactly. Finally, I just nodded and agreed, hoping we could then continue on our way. Bruce began to pull away. “Jefe!” shouted the policeman again. He had been in the process of climbing into the back of the truck. “Espere! (wait!)” He and his partner hopped in the back. were being requested to drive the police down the road to the bus stop. They, roo must have liked the new pickup...
The tourist police pulled us over as we rounded the corner on the way to the church offices. We weren’t speding (is there such a thing in Honduras?), we hadn’t run a red light, no illegal turns, we had our seat belts on, yet there he was, waving a ticket booklet in the air. He explained that I was wearing my seatbelt, but incorrectly. He showed me where it said that I had to wear it correctly on the list of sanctions. It had been bothering a sunburn on my neck, so I had slipped it under my armpit, rather than having it ride over my shoulder and brush against my neck. He told me about the long hours that he worked, his children, his low salary. “Every day is a new adventure with the police, “ I thought. “Thank you for telling me about the law,” I said politely. Then, as he continued to wave the ticket book telling me he would have to write me a ticket, I decided to ask for a warning instead of a ticket. “Can’t I just….” I began. The policeman interrupted. “Give us a tip?” he asked. “Oh, no,” I said. “I couldn’t’ do that!” I complemented him on his English skills, asked him where he was studying, talked about his children a bit. We chatted a bit more as I considered that the police checks no longer made me nervous. They too are struggling to get by in a country that pays them little, and expects much. The policeman laughed, wished me good day and we continued on our way.