Rokia's custody paperwork is finally done!! I am so relieved that I get to check that huge item off of the visa to-do list! I am really proud of my SO because, as anyone who has lived in a French bureaucratic system knows, it is no easy feat! At the same time, he finally got his birth certificate fixed, which was also quite complicated because he was born in Cote d'Ivoire but we live in Mali. So now we have his birth certificate with the correct name and date!
Next step: get Malian passports for me, Amina and my SO. We had been waiting to do this because we needed my SO's corrected birth certificate. I guess I can put Amina on my passport since she's a baby, so looks like we'll only have to pay for 2 passports. We'll go the bribery route again, like we did with Rokia. Going the legal route is a bit cheaper (I think it's $100) but they are usually "out of passports" and then you end up waiting for months. The bribery route means paying someone who knows someone who knows someone. The cost is around $150 per passport but it is done in only a few weeks. For those of you from non-bribery lands, this sounds really sketchy I'm sure. But it unfortunately is the way of life here. Almost every official thing I've ever done here was through bribery. It is so ingrained in the system that you end up doing it for everything. From the small traffic stop policeman bribes, to the bigger things like passports and drivers licenses. And then of course the highest level bribes in politics and government.
It's funny the way you bribe here without directly talking about it. There are culturally acceptable ways to ask for a bribe or to offer a bribe. I have become a pro at offering bribes. The key is to say that it's for something else. Like when the guard at the mayor's office helped me get some paperwork without the correct documents, I handed him about $5 and said "for you and your friends to make some tea". Or when my cousin-in-law helped me go quickly through the social security system to get my maternity leave pay, I gave him $10 and said that he should buy something for his kids. You never directly say, "Thanks for helping me do this illegal thing", you always act like it's for their family. So there you have it: the key to bribing in Mali.
Hot season is coming quickly and I am dreading the next few months. It's funny how much more the heat bothers me now that I've got this little chubby baby and I'm worried about her being uncomfortable or getting heat rash. She's already got a few bumps under her chin(s) so I hope it doesn't get worse. I almost never use the A/C during the day but right now we're in the room with the A/C on full blast. Since it's hot season, it also means that Rokia moves back into our room since we all sleep in the 1 room with A/C during the hot season. I like having her in here because I know it's more comfortable but damn does she make a lot of noise at night. She tosses and turns and talks in her sleep. Plus she sleeps on a plastic sheet (still wets the bed sometimes), so her tossing makes a ton of noise.
But I'm trying to enjoy every minute with Rokia, even when she frustrates me, because in 4-5 months, I'll be leaving her and my SO for some time. It's weird to think of being without them, especially without Rokia since we spend so much time together. I really hope that I'm making the right choice for my family.
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Seems like bribing works the same way everywhere, where bribing works. I would never even try to bribe the police in Germany. I'm too scared it would lead me into even deeper trouble than the speeding ticket (or whatever else).
About bribery, obviously it happens very often here, though not on the same scale as Mali. My first-hand experience with it is sending gifts to the employees of city hall and DMV, every year (company stuff like keychains, fancy pens and notebooks, etc.) so that they wouldn't be assholes to us (us being the car-leasing company that buys new cars every week). Sometimes they just ask for the stuff, you know.