!Driving Trial @ Registry of Motor Vehicles, Werahara, Sri Lanka. 250804

30Aug04

Trial of patience, endurance and sanity more than anything else.

Dragged myself out of bed by 8am, headed down for a quick breakfast, Nimal arrived, we headed off with our packed lunches and a flask of tea, to Werahera where i was to take the theory test and driving practical.

Before the test, briefing at the driving school nearby. A 30 minute briefing in Sinhala at fast-forward speed. read: 30 minutes of staring at some lady waving her hands about and rolling her tongue and doing acrobatics with her mouth. Nimal translated:”they will not mark cancelled and changed answers, so be decisive and make no mistakes. This is how they assess your judgement on the roads.”

Test at 9.30am in a place that doesn’t quite live up to either “room” or “hall”. At least it had fans, and vents, and square wire mesh windows, all laced with cobwebs. We sat wherever we wanted, then waited for our names to be called out as some guy went through the pile of our driving license application forms, not reading out the next name until the form was collected, or until it was damn obvious from the seconds gone by that the candidate was not present. Tongue-twister after tongue-twister, they called out.

Many had walked in as they were already halfway through the names, and once they’d gone through the pile, people swarmed around them to hear their names called once more. They didn’t even bother calling my name, i was the only foreigner there, the only non-sri lankan, the only one who had a strange name they couldn’t pronounce. My form was shoved into my hands and i shoved myself back into my seat, getting used to the stares, and extremely relieved my form hadn’t been mishandled,lost, dissolved in the humidity, whatever. I guess i also served as a reminder that there were english speaking candidates, and main guy decided to have us seated in one row. We shuffled around, i moved a couple of seats.

More and more instructions pouring out in Sinhala, which main guy translated damn concisely as, “write the date here.”

They handed out exam questions, stacks of over-used, laminated booklets of 40 questions which we had to answer on the answer paper which had the wierdest layout. We also filled up a couple of other forms, like we had to write our names and reference numbers and date and time on the results slip, either cos they couldn’t be arsed with that chore, or because they were severely understaffed. My subsequent 10 hours of waiting before i secured the licence, proved it was to be the latter.

Knowing me, i accidentally missed a question in the theory exam and screwed up the other 3 following that, before realising. I had to somehow change my 2 to a 1, a 1 to a 2 and the next 2 to a 1. My answers became FAT, SHADED numbers, but judging from my score of 34 out of 40 in a dead easy paper, i think they saw through my shoddy cover-up. i finished the paper in half the time, and escaped into the fresh air.

I waited, got sent around, sometimes had no idea what was going on, but still waited for a go on the exam vehicle, the rickety people-carrier van. i finally got called into the van some 2 hours later, shoved in with 6 other people who wanted their last practice reversing. Drive to the place where there was a dirt track to reverse onto, we gotinto the front seat one by one and got a go. Sebestian my driver was right behind, they knew it was my car, so once i was done with my reversing, i got into that comfy air-conditioned car and head back to the Registry to guess what: wait.

Lunch, tea, waiting, watching, huffing, puffing, fanning away houseflies, waiting for my turn to be examined. People start packing up, the place feels emptier…5pm, roamed around the examiner, he said he’ll call my name. waited more, then finally my turn. You never know what’s going to happen next, never know when it’s your turn right now or when its actually 4 hours away, for they keep you in such suspense, and tell u to wait as if your turn was right round the corner. False hope upon false hope, in the end the best way to cope is not to have any hopes at all, and to be averse to surprise.

On that note, surprise of the day: Sebestian met with an accident in the Trial area. A learner bus was being examined for reversing, except he did it right into our car, and Sebestian sounded the ever mighty horn instead of trying to back away. My god, the frustration. I was so baffled by his reaction or lack of, and felt like donating some brain cells to him. Our hood was bent out of shape with a few scrapes and stratches, nothing major, but nothing minor either! We were in a trial area, no one was solely responsible, there were 4 others in the bus, the driver was being examined. Losses were entirely ours. This guy is a liability!!!

My turn finally and suddenly came, i got into the van, reverse parked, drove about 400m on the 2-way road, overtaking, copeing with traffic, answering the examiners’ questions about where i was from what i was doing here what my parents do here what i am studying this that and the other. (I was told before the test that i should keep all eyes on the road while talking to the examiner as he was trying to check for distractability. Haha!) Dead easy. He told me to stop somewhere in front, wherever i wanted, so i did, and he said here, i shall grant you your temporary liscence, the real one will come in the post in 15 days, if there’s any problem here’s my mobile number.

Total dodginess, cos first, the post is unreliable, second, 15 days is a farce, and he gave his number so in 15 days’ time i’d call to enquire and he’ll say oh this that and the other, i can help you, but it will cost however many rupees. Damn it,even at this stage i could hardly wrap up the quest. Anyway i was pretty happy with the piece of paper with my photo stuck onto it and some scribbles and stamps and stuff, and got out of the van into the relative safety of our car, and headed back to Colombo.

I will make sure i collect my driving licence from the registry before it gets thrown into this blackhole of a postal system. Of course, i shall still need Nimal to arrange that for me, for Sri lanka works in ways i will still struggle to comprehend.

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