Thankfully, Richard is here, so of course, me loving a good truck ride around the city with Richard, I jumped in the truck with him this morning. I feel a bit like his little lost puppy sometimes when I follow him around, but I get to see lots of interesting things and hear a lot of good stories when I follow that guy around. Here's a little photo of Richard that I took this afternoon, just to remind you who Richard is.
Richard would be the one patching the old tin roof with tar in his shiny dress shoes and fancy "power" shirt (that would be the local version of the "power suit").So this morning, around 11am, Richard and I went off to the local traffic police station, armed with photocopies of me and Jackie's passports and drivers' licenses from home, and two passport photos each. First, we tried registering the truck. Of course, that didn't work since the import papers that we need are in a different town - the town where all the records were kept before the customs office opened here. Next week, after his new baby is born, Richard is going to have to bus to that town to pick up the papers to bring them back here where the registration office is. Once we get the truck registered, we can get it insured...
Richard and I started the whole process to get our licenses... of course, the guy there told us that we needed 4 photos, not just two. Ok, so we'll go back to get more photos. Thankfully, both Jackie and I have learned to travel with quite a stock of passport photos in our files! I've probably gone through 20 passport photos for various things in the last year! So we get our photos, jump back in the truck and roar off to the police station before lunch.
Getting back to the office, we find the same officer that we were dealing with before, along with the officer who gave both me and Wes tickets for various things at the airport! The officer was quite pleased to see that we were actually doing something about the things that he had given us tickets for! Maybe he'll be kinder to me the next time he stops me at the airport.
The one who was processing our licenses had quite a good time trying to figure out how to write our names in Arabic. All of the forms are only in Arabic - not a word of English on them anywhere. Which causes some difficulty here when many people, while they speak the local Arabic, do not know how to read it (the local version of Arabic, is usually written in English letters, if it's written at all, which it usually isn't - fascinating sociolinguistic situation, let me tell 'ya...). The traffic officer, named Scopas, shook his head and commented to Richard, (in Arabic) "Where do these white folks get their names?!" He also took a grand total of 1 passport photo from each of us. We brought the other three home.
Anyways, the forms all got filled out, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he actually wrote our names in the end. Who knows that I might end up with a new name... The next step was to go get our eyes tested. But we had left Jackie at home, and it was definitely time for lunch. So after an amazing meal of boiled spinach, peanut paste and potatoes (really, it's amazing the way they cook it here!), all three of us trooped off to the police hospital to get our eyes tested.
Turns out they figured we could see well enough since we found our way into the office without tripping over anything. They never did test our eye sight, even though we paid them $20 to stamp the application saying that our eyes were good enough to drive!
They also needed to know our blood types. I had already had a conversation with Richard that I actually don't know what my blood type is (um, yeah, something that I really DO need to figure out sometime before I actually need blood!). It's not unusual that people don't know their blood types, so they're willing and able to take your blood and test it right then and there in the office at the hospital. I figured telling a little white lie on my driver's license application was preferable to becoming infected with hepatitis, HIV or some other blood born disease from their needle... so if the traffic police ask, my blood type is A+. I got a few A+ s on my report cards, so I figured it would work for a blood type, as well.
The funniest thing that happened there was that while we were waiting under the trees waiting for the right stamp on the forms, the group of folks who were sitting and drinking tea suddenly burst out in laugher, and somehow it all seemed directed at us... Richard, too, burst out laughing... so, um, Richard, what's the deal?! Well, seems that the woman who was sitting there was telling her buddies that white women don't always wear underwear! So, um, er, they were all sitting there talking about whether or not we were wearing underwear. Seems around here it's common knowledge (thanks to Hollywood) that white women go without foundational garments sometimes. So, yeah, I'm really glad I don't care too much if I have visible panty lines ... at least anyone who cares will realize that yes, I do wear underwear! Because this is a G rated blog, I won't go into the implications of not wearing underwear around here... but um, I digress...
So we passed our "eye exam" with flying colors, since we paid our $20 for the eye exam and $1 for the blood test, none of which actually took place, of course. And then it was back to the traffic office for our driving tests!
Jackie got to go first. The traffic officer was in the front seat, Richard and me were in the backseat. Richard, of course, was the translator, but he got a little distracted at moments, chitchatting with the officer and forgetting to tell Jackie and me where to go. Jackie drove about 1/2 a kilometer in one direction straight down the road, did a U-turn around the roundabout, and then stopped in front of the police station. Then it was my turn. I went about 1/4 kilometer down the same road, where we got stuck in a traffic jam.
Good thing we had a traffic officer in the truck with us. Imagine the thoughts running through my mind, though, when I'm in the middle of a road test and the officer who is testing me jumps out of the truck in the middle of the road! Does that mean I passed? Is he fearing for his life because of my horrible driving?
Actually, it just means that he decided to get out and direct traffic because of the traffic jam. I wasn't quite sure what to do, so Richard just told me to stay put, and wait for the cop. So I did. People behind me wanted me to hurry up and get going, but I couldn't exactly roar away without my officer in the truck?! And I certainly wasn't going to get ticketed by him for blocking the road while I was waiting for him! Once the officer jumped back in the truck, we were off again, and I continued down to the next roundabout, turned round it, and went straight back to the parking lot!
I guess we both passed, because he didn't say anything to any of us, just walked back into the office and started writing someone on our forms. We went in and out of several different offices, several different times, just following along behind Richard like little puppies... after a while, I got a little tired of following him and taking up space in the squished little offices, so I decided to sit down next to the "receptionist" who was sitting on a plastic chair on the verandah and doing some lovely needlepoint. After a little while, a little kid (probably about 10 or 11 years old!) came around and started snapping photos of everyone sitting there with his digital camera! Yeah, it was a little random. I did the African thing and crowded around him after, wanting to see the photo on the little screen in the back! I almost asked him if he could email me the photo so I could put it on my blog... but I didn't. I should have. But I didn't.
By this time it was getting pretty late - around 4:30, and our friend Scopas didn't feel like doing any more work for the day. He had been working pretty hard the whole time we were there, and it was pretty hot and steamy in the office, so I don't really blame him for wanting a break! He told us to return tomorrow morning to fetch our laminated cards. So hopefully, tomorrow morning, the cards will, in fact be there, and the paper work won't go missing! I would hate to have to go through this whole day all over again!
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