When I was here in '06-'07, I got a TZ driver's license, but had gone without one all last year. Finally, I decided a second year was pushing it, so Jenny, my Imara friend, and I decided to go get ours this week. When Bruce and Carly, 2 other Imara workers, heard about it, they wanted to come, too. This is such an ordeal that you really do want company for it! We decided on Thursday, in the event that if we had to come back for a second day, we could come back on Friday. (I had heard of people who took a second day, so I was preparing for the worst!)
After a fairly unnerving morning where my car refused to start(!, and the guys from the garage had to come over and clean off terminals, etc.,I got an emergency phone call from Jenny saying she had gotten application forms the day before to speed up the process (Right!), and she wanted to let me know I needed a TIN - Tanzania identification number. I didn't know what that was and thought it might be on my registration card, which was in our accountant's office, as they were using it to go get my road license, which had expired a week ago. I rushed down there, and it wasn't on there. Happy, our fill-in accountant said this was a "must." I gave up on it, and went to town, anyway. I met everyone at the Imara office and sat down to fill out the application. Jenny showed me where her number was, so I called back to my house and got Sarah to look for a similar piece of paper, number, etc. She found a number, and gave it to me, but we weren't convinced it was the right number.
Carly is a preschool teacher who's only been here about a month, and Bruce had wanted me to unofficially interview her, talk about school expectations as she works with Imara, fill her in on background here, etc., so we planned to do that while we stood in lines. She had to go meet her mechanic to get her TIN, and he called to say he had heard that TRA, the place we had to go to for our licenses, was closing at 11! This is not unusual, so we believed it! Jenny and Bruce were just going in to a meeting, so Carly and I decided to go ahead and at least be standing in line. We got there a little after 10, and Eliasante, the mechanic, said no, TRA wasn't closing at 11, just the guy Carly needed to see for her TIN. So, he arranged all of that, and he took us in to shepherd us through the beginning of the process.
First, we went upstairs for photos and fingerprints. When the photo man looked at the TIN I had written down, and checked it in his sysytem, he said it didn't exist. I had been a little afraid of that, so I went back downstairs and asked Eliasante if I should get a new number. He said, no, I should wait and check through my paperwork at home for it. Carly and I went ahead and stood in the first line, or what we hoped was the right first line, as any signs there were were, of course, mostly in Swahili, so we were playing it by ear, looking at other people's paperwork, etc. We probably stood in line for close to an hour before Jenny and Bruce got there, and they found another office we had to go to first for an official stamp. Since I didn't think it would matter to me, I kept holding our place in line while they took turns going and standing in THAT line! Finally, Jenny said, "Why don't you just go in and ask him if you need a TIN? Bruce didn't have one, and he said that was fine." So, I went, and he said my passport number would do just as well. THAT I had! So, he stamped my paperwork, and I got back in line. About another hour later, Carly and I got in to the office where you turn in your paperwork, and they took my photo and fingerprints there, so that worked out fine. Jenny and Bruce were a few people back in line, so we went outside to wait for them. After standing for so long, our legs and backs were killing us, so we slid down to the floor and leaned against the wall. Very shortly, a security guard came and asked us to come inside and sit on chairs: we decided we must have been loitering! Probably, having 2 white women sitting on the floor is very culturally unapproved of!
The NEXT thing we were supposed to do was go down the street to the polce dept. for another signature or something, but we took a lunch break, figuring they would, too. We went to the Maasai Italian restaurant just around the corner and had pizza and calzones and a Diet Coke (me) and coffees (everyone else) to fortify ourselves for the afternoon!
Then, off to the police station, and seeing 2 police officials who pulled up our registrations and approved of them, or entered them into their records; I'm truthfully not sure what they did, but we answered their questions, and were allowed to go back to the place we'd started this all. Then we had to go the bank, right next door, and pay for our licenses! It was about 3:30 by then, and that was all we could do that day. Once the TRA gets notice that our cash deposit was in their account, we can go back, stand in another line, and be given our licenses! I'll be gone next week, but Jenny said she'd pick mine up, if they let her!
When we finally left, I said to Carly, "I feel like we should have our picture taken here as we spent so much time here!"
We all celebrated by going to a cafe for cheesecake, then I went home and fixed dinner! My entire day, and what I accomplished was to apply for a driver's license, do a tiny bit of grocery shopping, and fix dinner - and I was completely exhausted! But, I can almost stop praying for invisibility from all the police doing license and registration checks everywhere I go!
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