Skiving from School
Today we had a bit of a lie in since we’re going to get driving licences- the traffic police don’t do anything till 9 and Paul’s language school usually starts at 8.30. We had to do it on a school day because they’re only open in the mornings on weekdays. Our friend, Hassan, is helping us to sort it all out. He assured us that it should only take about half an hour to sort out since he’s friends with the chief of traffic police. We’ve been warned by others that they often demand bribes and every foreigner who goes to get a licence has a different story to tell afterwards. One lady was even asked to take a driving test in a car with a door that wouldn’t stay closed unless she held it with her right hand.
The big boss
We picked up Hassan on the way to the traffic police and arrived at the traffic police HQ which is on the edge of the city. We were armed with all our documents and paperwork that might be asked for including passports, licence and a letter from the language school stating that Paul is a student there and that our residence visas are through them. We had no clue where we needed to go or how to ask but, thankfully, Hassan did. He took us up to the office of the big boss who is his friend and he took a look at the letter from Paul’s language school. On the top, he wrote a message which said something like ‘don’t ask these people to pay you any bribes, signed, the big boss’. Afterwards we found out that we needed to go over to the other side of the city to the driving school /licence center to sort out the licences. Hassan assured me that I should still make it to school for my second lesson.
Eye test
We arrived at the licence centre and, after seeing the note from the big boss, they took us straight to the office manager who sat us in his comfiest chairs while various people filled in forms for us and photocopied them millions of times. We both had to have 8 photos taken and we thought it would get sorted really quickly, but then we got sent back into the city centre to have eye tests at the hospital. The eye test was to stand on the opposite side of the room and read from a sheet which had E shapes pointing up, down, left and right. The trouble was, we didn’t know what we were supposed to say when they pointed at different characters and they didn’t understand what we meant by “Ε, W, 3, Μ”, but the fact that we were saying something in response led them to the conclusion that our eyesight must be good enough.
No camels allowed
We went back over to the licence center and assumed that the rest would be a quick formality but there we still lots more forms to be filled in and photocopied. We were supposed to have a lesson & a test about Yemeni road signs which are mostly the same as English ones and also mostly ignored. The man who’s job it was to teach us said, “You English people know the signs better than we do, so I won’t bother teaching you.” He tested us on a few but then told another of the many officials involved to make us the necessary certificate to say that we’d passed. Apparently the camel sign is not “Watch out for camels”, but “No camels allowed on this road”. There is also a sign which means, “no stopping here on wedding days”, and signs for “no stopping on odd days” and “no stopping on even days”.
Maybe they need some computers
After yet more forms & photos, it seemed that we were almost done since the licence itself was being filled in and stamped by multiple officials. The last guy to sign and stamp the licence asked for a bribe but Hassan would have none of it and went to get the manager to come and tell him off. Getting the last bits of paper filled in and photocopied before the 1.00 closing time was a bit of a rush but we managed it in the end. By the time it was done, we’d visited about 20 offices, filled in/ photocopied about 30 different sheets and had 9 photos taken each. People who don’t have a friend who’s a friend of the big boss must take days to organise it all and pay lots of extra money. If they devoted more effort to training drivers and less to paperwork, maybe it would be a bit less crazy on the roads round here.
