The Road And Transport Safety Authority is an interesting place. Today we went to (finally) sort out our Zambian driving licences and to get the fitness (read MOT if you are from the UK) done for our Jeep. 

(Just a note to say how grateful we are for friends here. For instance Toby, from Germany is a mechanic. He works as a support missionary for Amano Christian school but makes time to help people like us. For instance he has recently fixed our Jeep for us, hence the need now to get the fitness done so we can drive it around again.)

We spent a total of about 30 minutes actually being seen for various things. I was at RATSA from just after 0900 until around 1630!

We arrived (just after 0900) with the Symons, our cowrokers here at PIZ, and Toby, our faithful guide. Neither we nor the Symons had much of a clue what we needed to do. Toby arranged for us to see the manager, a kind Zambian lady who enjoyed Rachel’s (Symons) Bemba greeting and was then a little sad that we couldn’t go much beyond a greeting in Bemba. It was about 10:00 when we got to see her and she began processing our applications. We had all the necessary paperwork, passports, national registration cards, UK licences, letters from the DVLA to say our licences were real licences, medical checks, etc…

We were then moved on two doors down for something I can’t even remember now. By 11:00 we were having photographs and fingure prints taken digitally. Then back to the  manager to prove we had some idea of the highway code. In Zambia they have ten key rules. Such as number one; “Know the highway code very well and put it in to practice”. And number four; “drive with patience towards other road users and hang back when necessary”. All reasonable, common sense stuff. Toby said that when he was asked he answered the first one, then said, “But the 10 commandments are much more important!” and proceeded to talk about the gospel!

Finally we had to go on to the payment office to pay for our provisional licences. Next week we need to go back on Wednesday to book our driving test for Thursday. Once we have had our test (assuming we pass, which isn’t a forgone conclusion) we can then pick up our Zambian licences a week later. All this, because of the associated queues, took to about 12:00.

The RATSA buildings are, I assume, old colonial buildings. Solidly enough built, but obviously fairly old. It is a little strange walking in to these buildings from a past age, with the offices’ contents being a mix of the old paper system (files cover the shelves on the walls) and computers, which look quite out of place.

Anyway, the fun was only just beginning. As I said we also needed to get the fitness done for the Jeep to prove it is road worthy. Part one is to pay for the test. This costs K50, about £3 at the moment. A little cheaper than the UK MOT. Simple enough you might think. However the system for paying for fitness was playing up. Everything else was working fine, but just this one system. It was taking 5-10 minutes for one person to pay. (Normally it would take perhaps 1 minute.) I was in a queue of about 8 people. An hour later I had paid my K50.

As per Toby’s instructions I went and sat in the car in the car park waiting for the tester to come and do their thing. (Andy Symons had gone and got some lunch for us from Hungry Lion – South African KFC equivalent with extra salt – while the others had gone back to Toby’s to wait for us.) By 14:00 it was clear no-one was coming. I started to go hunting for what was happening. It was at this point that I discovered the proceedure had changed since Toby was last here and I should have been in a queue of vehicles just behind where I had parked. (Had I gone straight there we would already have made it home!) I joined the queue around 14:30. There were three vehicles in front of me. At about 15:40 suddenly the vehicle inspector began inspecting vehicles. In about 5 minutes he had inspected all 30 in the line! The test involved turning your lights on, showing your indicators worked and showing your windscreen wipers and horn worked. Also your vehicle needed to be able to drive out the gate! Not quite as thorough as an MOT.

From there we all had to park our vehicles and wait in a small space (all 30 of us) for the staff to process the paper work. This invovled three people, including the inspector, and seemed to be very funny, because they spent a lot of time laughing. I like laughing, so this was a good thing! Finally by about 16:30, I had my little “fitness” pass certificate, and began the journey home. 

I had blocked out the entire morning in my diary, knowing by reputation that visits to RATSA can be long. Turns out the meeting, two phone calls and various amounts of preparation for next week that were planned for the afternoon are now needing to be rescheduled. Looks like another Satruday of work ahead 😦

Still I am very thankful for friends to help us through all this. And very thankful the licence process is started and the Jeep is drivable!