The word: Gendarmes

Part of speech: Noun

The source sentence and page number: (Funny in Farsi) page 133 "The gendarmes started sifting through the clothes and the myriad of gifts i had brought for my host family.

Context clues: "Started shifting through"

Definition: a police officer in any of several European countries, esp. a French police officer

Your original sentence: When i visited Europe i got searched before entering the hotel by gendarmes.