Sleep

February 28, 2013

Day: 5

Countdown: 36

Suggestion: Sleep

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” my friend Arnold says. Visiting him in Nairobi a couple of years ago, I understood why he would forgo sleep on a regular basis; his life is pretty sweet. Even on my first night there, we had a night of excitement.

Or, to be more specific, we were nearly arrested.

I’d just flown in from London and was pretty tired and a bit jet-lagged. “Let’s just head out for one beer and then you can get some sleep,” Arnold suggested around 9 p.m. We nearly didn’t make it back at all that night.

At the bar, shortly after 11 p.m., with a hundred other people, we were locked inside and told we were under arrest. Policemen blocked the only exit. When asked why we were being arrested, we were told that drinking after 11 p.m. on a weekday was illegal. Apparently this was a new law. And we were to be an example for the rest of the city.

Arnold and I watched as people were herded into a police van and taken, we assumed, to the police station. There was only one van, so people were being taken in groups. We had to think quickly.

Tactic #1: Demand to see identification. One of the cops laughed, pointed to his gun, and said, “This is all the identification I need.” Seriously, that happened. Watching too many American movies, perhaps?

Tactic #2: Use reason. Arnold, an incredible orator with whom I have probably never won an argument, tried his best to talk with the policemen. He went from one to the next, finding the weakest link, a.k.a. the one most receptive to those sometimes fleeting notions known as common sense and reason. Still, there was no talking our way out of the situation. Big Gun #1 of the cop brigade kept a firm watch on the others.

Tactic #3: Be an American. Standing up with an entitled air, I shouted, “I’m an American. You can’t arrest me!” Yup, I actually said that. I then tried the “I work with the U.S. Embassy in Malawi. You can’t arrest me.” Policeman response: “This isn’t Malawi.” I sat back down.

Tactic #4: Retreat to the portion of the bar farthest from the exit and bide time. We sat at a table in the upstairs portion of the bar, farthest from the staircase, in a corner, and huddled. Should we surrender? No way. Should be bribe them? No. Should we try to isolate the identified nicest policeman and try tactic #2 with him? Yup.

Result: Nice cop hid us in the tiny caged garbage area in the back of the bar. We squeezed in between bags of trash and waited. The last sweep of the bar, we weren’t found, and the cops left. Stand off won!

We walked out at 4 a.m.

So when I am pressed for sleep, I think of Arnold. Except, sometimes, a person just has to sleep. And that is exactly what I needed yesterday for nearly nine uninterrupted hours. Day Five’s activity: sleep.