I suppose one of the stories I've recounted the last week eliciting much laughter is the pinnacle feat of getting a driver's license and acquiring a car. The Traffic Department is not a place I would enter without a Fixer. I don't speak Arabic (yet) and if you don't know how to navigate that system, you won't get a license or vehicle title transfer, etc without experiencing grave angst and aggravation. The only thing that seems relatively easy and straightforward there is the exercise of settling your miscreant violations. Without uttering a word, one can present a Resident Permit where the ID number cues the film of running a red light, speeding, or whatever. By obediently presenting a credit card, it all goes away; amazingly expeditious and painless for a wealthy petro-state that doesn't need the revenue and is otherwise mired in bureaucratic red tape and tribal politics to get anything else done.
When my loaner car privileges expired in December (which I managed to stretch to mid-January) I quickly found a 2007 Jeep that seemed to have my name all over it: silver, low mileage, 6-speed manual transmission, steel overhead bar for rolling the thing on a dune - the vessel to take us to the desert for untold adventures. I figured I had to get a driver's license if I was to be the proud owner of a car again after 15 years of not having to deal with one as a NYC resident.
My boss gave me the business card of a Fixer and I phoned him to have him meet me at the Traffic Department to guide me through the process. We met there the next morning and I hastened one of my colleagues who had been vainly trying to get a license with no success in four previous attempts to join me because I needed the whining about the nightmare of it all to end. We were led around to one typewriter after another, getting forms filled out with the completed eye test, etc....all very 1970's in contrast to the ticket settlement setup.
What makes this process difficult is that you never know what part of it will go south, requiring indigenous intervention; with a Fixer in tow, one can get the Sheikh to sign an exception to keep your application in play. The thing is, the Sheikh doesn't always report to work and he doesn't keep regular hours especially if he knows someone is hounding him for something, he'll work from another office across town without notice to avoid them. Once my application hit the anticipated snag of the driving school requirement, we traipsed upstairs and were shown a large office where we were offered coffee, tea and sweets until the Fixer got the Sheikh to sign us into the easy driving school with no wait.
We went to said school and there was hardly anyone there. The man in charge was in traditional dress and spoke pretty good English, some German and French. He handed us a pamphlet with about 100 traffic signs we needed to memorize for a test in the next few minutes. I looked at most of them and thought I'd get by. My colleague and I sat down for our "written" test which consisted of the guy pointing all over the pamphlet and asking us for answers. Of course, the first sign he pointed to for me was one I don't recall ever seeing in any part of the world - - a solid blue circle with a red border and red diagonal line through the middle. Any clue? I didn't have one. So we went to the other parts of my test and got back to that stupid sign that still meant nothing to me. I looked at my colleague and she whispered "no parking," which I repeated and then passed my test. Same thing happened to my colleague where she got hung up on an unfamiliar sign and had to go back to it at the end. She looked at me for the answer, which I whispered and she repeated and then we were off to the driving test.
Since I was buying a manual transmission vehicle, I had to test on one so my license could indicate that I am permitted to drive both. The first part of the test is a fabled maneuver in reverse whereby one makes a right turn up a hill and then reverses back down making the same turn, hugging the curb. If you stray too far from the curb, you fail and have to wait 30 days for a retest. I wasn't told about the particular maneuver in advance but knew about the 30-day wait if I failed the mysterious test. Our fella in charge may have expected us to fail the maneuver if we had to cheat on the road signs but his hopes were dashed when we both pulled it off.
When I phoned the Fixer the following week to help me navigate the title change on my Jeep purchase, I had the distinct privilege of meeting the Sheikh. The letter I had to present from my employer stating no objection to my acquisition of property was written in English and needed to be in Arabic. I wasn't about to go back to the office and get in the queue for another letter so the Fixer marched it upstairs to the Sheikh, who happened to be in that morning. The Fixer took a spot at the front of the line outside the Sheikh's door and we went in next. I was introduced and the Fixer mentioned that I had faithfully complied with the driving school requirement the week prior, to which the Sheikh cracked a wry smile and asked where I was from. The "New York" reply always engenders a warm response as these folks love to talk about their memorable times in The City. He waived me over to the sweets (it was 7:40am) and as I reached for what I thought looked good, the Fixer pointed me to another choice and indicated it was better. Who was I to argue sweets at that time of day in the Sheik's office?
When I stepped out of the Traffic Department, I thought matters were settled but once I got to the dealership managing the used car transaction, I discovered that the insurance information was wrong. By then, I was getting on a plane for Europe the next day and couldn't face another trip to the Traffic Department. They fixed it for me and while needlessly circuitous, this stuff gets done in that place and my insurance papers were corrected on my behalf without my presence.
When I find a picture of the Jeep I have buried somewhere in this laptop, I'll post it.
I haven't seen many NO PARKING signs with the blue circle and red markings. Except at the Traffic Department when I thought my title was transferred and I noticed a sign by one of the entrances, with a car parked in front of it. This is one I snapped in Cairo in early June:
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