Hello,

This week my wife and I drive into Africa, first time for both of us as adults.

In my travels to date, I have been very fortunate to only encounter corruption and sleaze in eastern europe, and then only for laughable amounts where the story was worth the 40 cents that the thief-in-uniform took off of me.

As such, I am not well prepared for dealing with officials who try to steal from us. As one who over-thinks things, this is a source of anxiety.

I prefer to smile and exercise patience in the face of adversity. I don't like confrontation unless I am 100% factually in the right -- a luxury I likely won't have.

I have bought a very large bag of "werther's original" hard candies to toss at cops who bashfully request "a small gift for me" -- I think this is an amusing approach, non-combative, and very cheap. I hope it works. If not, hey, we have werthers to eat in the car.

For more aggressive requests, however, I am under-equipped for how best to deal with them. It appears the common advice here is to request an "official receipt" to make them go away. Fine and good, I can do that. I've also seen pretending to dial the US Embassy can work. Okay. What other tricks make sense and can be delivered with a polite smile (so as to not escalate the bluff/demand)?

I *love* the very concept of the Zero Rupee note that is in India. The company behind the protest, 5th pillar, also offers a Zero Euro note. (Actually they offer Zero notes in just about every currency -- could be amusing) I'd very much love to pass one of these to some jerk official who was demanding cash from me -- but I am keenly aware that this is more "passive aggressive" that might be safe, and may start a much more confrontational situation. Bad form to call a thief a thief -- particularly a thief with a gun. Thoughts? I'm thinking of trying them out to get the "point" across in select situations.

I am resigned to the idea that I won't "win them all", and this is annoying to me, but I'm chalking it up as a cost of the trip, "learning experience", and "story fodder" all at once.

Appreciate any insights I can use to make it better for the guy behind me.

Cheers,

- Mike

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