Like Mother Like Daughter

The best stories always seem to come from traveling. 
The other day, I'm heading up country from Lome with 3 other volunteers to visit a friend's village. Normally the options are a bush taxi or a car, both of which we have to wait for to fill up (and, no a car with 4 passengers and a driver is not a full car). But, we decide to splurge a little and rent a whole car so we can each have our own seat. We find a car and discuter a price with the driver. He tells us he doesn't know the village, but he knows the general area. No problem, it's right after Tchevie and we can show you where to stop. Ok great, 6000 cfa for the car. So, we're on our way. Literally the minute we are out of the city of Tchevie the driver starts slowing down at every single building asking if we're there yet. No, we explain, it's the next actual village, we're still in the middle of the bush. After about the 5th attempted stop the driver pulls off to the side of the road. We ask a passerby if he knows the village and how far is it. It's not far at all he says, it's maybe 5 k away. Then the driver throws up his hands and tells us he can't continue. Uh... What are you doing? Were paying for you to go to the village. He says we pay him 8000 cfa now or he will leave us there, by the side of the road. As much as we try to talk to him, he won't back down. We confer amongst ourselves. As frustrated with the driver as we are, we still don't want to be left out by the side of the national highway as the sun is setting trying to find a car. We decide to offer the driver 7000 cfa to continue to the village. Nope, 8000 or nothing. And here's where my mom must have thousands of miles away channeled herself into my brain. "You think that you can cheat us out of money? Mark my words, if you leave us here by the side of the road, you will be sorry." (this of course is not actually a direct translation of what I said, although these are probably the exact words my mom would have used) I imagine his thought process was something like, "Who does this foreigner think she is? Threatening me? We'll see about that." And he threw us out on the side of the road with all our baggage. "Well, if that's how you're gonna be," I told him, "we're only paying you 5000." In hindsight I don't think it was an especially rash or unreasonable course of action, but 1000 cfa is a lot to the normal Togolese (it's the average amount an uneducated Togolese person makes in a day). He laughed and disagreed. "Haha, you don't believe me, you just wait and see. I said you would be sorry," we're the words of my mother ringing in my head. We handed him 5000; he counted it and a proclaimed that we were missing 1000, "No, we're not missing anything, that's exactly how much you're getting." Had we been anywhere but in the bush on the side of the highway we could have just walked away then, but there was nowhere for us to go. So we stood there as he yelled at us to pay him more. He refused to take the 5000 and got in his car to drive off, but instead of driving off, he went over to the group of people who had by this time gathered outside of their houses. So he comes back with a group of villagers and they basically hold an impromptu village council meeting there by the side of the road. This village elder listens to both us and the driver explain the situation. Neither of us will budge. So then one guy speaks up and says ok why don't just meet halfway and add 500 to what you gave him. But, unfortunately for the driver, I am nothing if not stubborn. I took this village council meeting into my own hands as if I was baptist preacher and they were my congregation. "If you agree to give someone 1000 to take you to Lome and they just stop and leave you at tsevie would you still pay the same price for only part of the way? No, you wouldn't! Now we have to pay more money for another car and he still expects to get paid money he didn't earn! Does that seem right to you?" The village council diliberated for a second and then took the 5000. They handed it to the driver and told him he should take it and go. We were victorious. Although, we were still out in the bush on the side of the road without a car. Then my friend Riordan turns to me and says, "You were so good at that, it was a little bit scary. You were just like a Togolese woman." And I realized that I was actually turning into my mom.