THAT’S A REAL PICKER

We are finally getting to some of our personal business. Within the first 30 days of being here we were suppose to get drivers license, registration cards, and switch ownership on our vehicle. It didn’t get done. We hit the ground running, didn’t have anyone to leave the kids with long enough to do it, and then the computers at road traffic were down, then we went in but they didn’t have papers…
Well, Brian got stopped and luckily talked his way out of a fine because his Minnesota Drivers License was no longer valid because he had been here more than 30 days. So we had to go in for those. We went in Monday morning and were cruising along, not believing our luck that the lines were short, the papers were getting signed, so going to the other building for a pass certificate…we’d be done by 10 am! Then...the picker. As of the first of the year, all foreigners have to take a ROAD TEST for a license, unless you are a diplomat. AAGHH!! We had no idea what this meant. Drive in Lusaka? On a course? How hard was it? Well, I had only driven the truck once since we got here and did not feel comfortable scheduling a test. But Brian did. So at 2 pm we had to drive out to the boonies to take the test. It was a closed road course, no problem. But there was this backing up thing that you had to do. I got way nervous and was glad I didn’t pay the fee to take the test. Finally Brian gets to his test, but they don’t make him do the backing up. AAGH! I should have done mine that day too! You just never know. So anyway, he passed and his license is on the way. Now I still have to go get mine-another day in town, but I have my provisional, so I think I have 90 days.
Good news though! I found out we could get our registration cards in Chongwe instead of having to go to Lusaka!! We need to be in by 9 am someday, so maybe that part will only take ½ day instead of the whole thing!
It will take a day to get police clearance on our vehicle change, go to the Revenue House to get tax certificate on the truck, and then probably another day to go back to Road Traffic and make it official. Unfortunately, we such a large population there are just lines everywhere. They say the middle of the month is better, but it’s hard to say. We are looking at finding a cheap place to stay over night to do some of this business stuff and not drive in and out, but then we have the kids to deal with. We just can’t take them to all these places and keep our sanity. Hopefully if we can get our truck fixed we can do a thing or two when the grandparents are here. They can stay here with them and we can get done what we can. But they say the end and beginning of months are the busy times; plus the first quarter is over, so it is hard to say how busy the lines will be. We just keep plugging away piece by piece.
But it really is a picker that we had to wait this long, and not be able to miss out on the driving test!