The Neighborhood DMV

So Caleb and I went to go get our Ethiopian drivers' licenses last week, and it's one of those experiences that I could never do justice, but I'll try and relate some of the highlights to you. We needed what is known as a "grade 3" license, because our vehicle is a 10 passenger Land Cruiser, and anything over 8 passengers in Ethiopia requires this Grade 3 license. The Grade 2 license, which most people get, is relatively easy to get, but the Grade 3 has proven elusive to most foreigners without jumping through a lot of hoops. There is an Ethiopian SIM staff member, Nicco, who takes care of importing vehicles, licensing, and pretty much anything to do with the mission vehicles, and so he was kind enough to take us to get our licenses. Actually, Nicco was kind enough to do absolutely everything for us while we stood around looking as ignorant as we are.
We started out the day at 8 am, and spent the next 7 hours working through the process of getting these licenses. (You thought your DMV wait time was bad). We followed Nicco like good little children as he went from window to window, building to building--paying a fee here, getting a copy made here, getting a stamp on this paper, getting a signature on this form. The thing about Ethiopia is that there is no concept of an orderly line or waiting your turn. The person who gets helped is the person who pushes to the front and waves his paper the most enthusiastically in front of the window. Lucky for us, Nicco is very good at this. Plus, he has connections . Eventually as we were waiting around, it came out that we would be expected to take an examination plus a driving test in (drumroll please) a lorry-type truck. Not only would we be driving in a lorry, but we would be expected to double clutch each time we downshifted. (Thoughts here...first, what is double clutching? second, is there actually a driving course back behind this building where we can actually reach speeds in a lorry to warrant shifting up to 4th gear and back down?) Nicco, thankfully, saw my face at news of this driving test, and promised he would get me out of it. Apparently, a woman who cannot double clutch can be safely given a Grade 3 license without taking a driving examination simply because she is a woman. Well, possibly a white woman. So that is great--I was exempt from driving. Caleb, though, would not be exempt. He would need to take the driving test.
So with that understood, we were shuffled off to our "orientation". We were put in a room with a large board of road signs, an Ethiopian proctor of sorts, and a Chinese man. I guess we were lumped with the Chinese because of our common lack of black skin, never mind that the Chinese man could not speak a word of English. We were handed a blank piece of paper and told to write 1-70 the meanings of the road signs. I won't go into detail because I cannot even begin to explain what all happened next, but Caleb and I proceeded to get pretty much every road sign wrong while the Chinese man pantomined the meanings of the road signs in the background to pass his examination. Ahh..Ethiopia.
Somehow we managed to pass our exam, even with all of our errors, and reunited with Nicco to find out he had worked his magic again and somehow had gotten the driving test signed off for Caleb as well. So after 7 hours of waiting, running, laughing, trying to fill out forms in Amharic, and generally being in disbelief the entire day, we emerged victorious with our Grade 3 licenses.
Just don't ask me to double clutch.