It is Thursday morning, 21 December. This evening I won’t fall asleep to the bzzzzzzz of the ceiling fan, but to the roar of jet engines. I’m coming home.

And I think I’m ready for a break. I’ve heard too much bad Christmas music and have spent too many consecutive days (6) without water. Last night I snuck into the 5-star Labadi Beach Hotel to shower in their health club locker room. (It beats the bucket method.)

But worst was this morning. Oti and I set out at the regular time and encountered a wall of traffic in the one-lane section of High St. At one point, a right turn only lane breaks off and Oti turned into it, zipped past about 50 idling cars, made the (legal) right and then a (legal) U-turn, and went to rejoin the line of stopped cars. An inconsiderate maneuver? Without a doubt. But one practiced by hundreds of taxi drivers every morning, and legal all the same.

Jeff, a loud, officious traffic cop, didn’t think so. He stormed up to the driver’s side window and demanded to see Oti’s license. Oti handed them over and then Jeff demanded that Oti open the door and let him sit in the backseat. You can guess where the story went from there.

As the three of us inched along, Oti explained that he was driving me to the office and to the bank, and that we were in a hurry because I was leaving today to return to the US. I apologized and told Jeff it was my fault we were rushing. Jeff introduced himself cordially, smiling, as if I might mistake him for another friendly Ghanaian. That was the worst part—the cheap shit veneer of friendliness, an obvious ploy for him to discover how best to extort us. Not ten seconds before, he had been barking into Oti’s ear from the backseat. Would I play the gullible tourist and pony up every cedi on the spot to get him out of the car? Or would he have to bargain?

“You should pay the penalty for your friend,” he said calmly.

“And what is the penalty?”

“800,000 cedis.”

This is a ridiculous, impossible price—more than 2 months’ pay for the average resident of Accra. In an effort to call his bluff I began to argue that we would need to see this in writing, that he should give us a printed ticket and that we would go to court to settle it. I actually entertained the thought that he might charge us with an actual violation of law.

But Oti had already taken out his wad of cedis and begun to peel off 5,000-cedi notes. It was not my risk to take, Oti’s license being on the line; and so ahead lay the filthy prospect of the bargain. It is the seediest, the most pathetic abuse of power, all the more obscene because of the banter, the back-and-forth, the dickering over 10,000 cedis ($1.10). To reject one offer, Jeff said, “Oh! That’s not a bribe; that’s a dash.” (A dash is something you’re expected to give a cop whenever he stops your car, even at a meaningless roadblock, even if you haven’t been accused of any violation.)

We settled on 80,000 cedis and I peeled it off my own wad, disgusted with myself and with the whole situation. If anyone should be willing to go through the rigamarole of Ghana’s “due process”, surely I, with money and (some) time to spare, should. But instead Oti and I succumbed to that time-honored tradition of lassitude and evasion of accountability that feeds the system of bribery in the first place. In bribery’s defense, it saves time and money—in the immediate—on both ends. And the only thing you give up is any inkling of respect for the integrity of the laws themselves, or for the people who enforce them. But, hey, what’s integrity, anyway? We’re talking tens of thousands of cedis here—almost $10—that’s real money!

As if to underscore the absurdity of the situation, Jeff shooed me away when I went to hand him the money. “Give it to your friend,” he said, and motioned to Oti. In doing this he seemed to be trying to create the illusion that this was not a shakedown. The driver was the one who made the violation; thus he would be the one paying the fine. This way everything was on the level. So I handed the bills to Oti, who went to pass them to Jeff. The final flourish was the hand-off itself. He first lifted his right hand up and back at head level, fingers full of money facing the backseat. Jeff hissed venomously “tsss!” and Oti realized his mistake. So he tried again, this time backhanding the bills down at floor level, where they were happily collected. Jeff resumed his cordial demeanor and motioned for Oti to stop. With a handshake and a hearty “Nice day,” he squeezed himself out from behind the driver’s seat and was gone, the next palm greasing surely just moments away.

Just afterward I was livid. I told Oti that I thought corruption like this will keep Ghana from becoming a “first-rate country”. (What an insulting, low thing to say to a friend about his own home. I feel ashamed to have said it, especially given Oti’s response.) He quickly, almost apologetically, proposed a solution. His good friend is a “big man” whose father is the superintendent of the traffic division of the Accra police. We could simply relay what had happened through the obvious channel and have Jeff sacked. Do the ends justify the means? Is the prospect of a “net gain” in Accra’s police force integrity reason enough to use the same backdoor tactics to punish Jeff as he used to punish us?

Why am I so torn up about the whole affair anyway? I think it’s because, while I know some fault lies with Jeff and some frustration stems from being put in the situation to begin with, ultimately I failed to do the right thing. High-minded principles, zero follow-through: moral masturbation. Even these paragraphs are preachy. I’m sorry for that.

Later in the day I was told that the two weeks before Christmas are well-known to be prime time for these activities. Hell, traffic cops have kids, too, and they want presents. Maybe this Christmas season is as good a time as any to revisit Kim’s epiphany from the depths of her dance with misfortune: “It’s all about the money.” But from the blissfully comfortable vantage points of 7 Fairfield and 481, in the warm company of family and friends, I hope (and expect) to roundly reject it. Home sounds good. And I’ll be there soon.