On conquering, and getting conquered by, Malawi’s Road Traffic Administration

Last week, with Laura in tow, I set off to battle the Malawi equivalent of the DMV to get my local driver’s license. It is illegal to drive here on a USA license past 30 days, but no one ever notices, and short termers (or most people) never get a local license. However, because I own a car (actually 2) and registered them, I need to be more legit. We arrived at 7:30am, sharp, to find out that the office opened at 8am (of course). Still, without waiting long, the official in charge took my USA license, asked me what type of Malawi license I wanted (2 or 5 year). I replied, "a 2 year license please. And so he issued (and charged me) for a for 5 year license. Fine. Then, I went to get fingerprinted and was told by the machine that I had “bad quality fingers”; still, I somehow managed to get a photo taken that will not embarrass me. After paying $40, voila: Temporary license issued! Bad news: they mistakenly wrote it with the same issue and expiration date. Grrr. I would never have noticed, but at the 5^th police checkpoint-for-white-women-only 2 weekends ago, one of the officers did notice. Somehow, I managed to smile sweetly (and sweat secretly) enough to get out of it. He must have had his fill of bribes that day.

Over this last weekend, when most of the white-women-only checkpoints were hunting someone else, I did manage to get my first speeding ticket for going 55km in a 50km speedtrap – 2.3 miles over the speed limit and about 10 feet from the end-slow-speed sign conveniently hidden behind a shrub (a maybe a policeman holding the shrub...) . I handed over my USA license and the fee; I also bitterly noted to the officer that I was likely the only person going 2mph over the speed limit in the entire country with my hands glued to 10 and 2! He replied by giving me a flimsy receipt and likely preparing for the festival of a lifetime based on the number of other white people pulled over paying similar "fines". I had no idea so many expats lives in Malawi, but they could do a census next to the speeding traps. Bah humbug. Thanks, Laura, for paying half and helping me not lose it! The rest of the weekend driving was equally perilous: windy roads, crowded market highways, and men painting the lines on the narrow highways BY HAND and with what appeared to be a paintbrush better suited for paint-by-number. Still, we survived.

And, today, just one week after the issue of my temporary (and expired license), I got my real license! It has my name spelled correctly (a minor miracle) and is actually good all over sub-Saharan Africa for 5 years. Hallelujah! Next adventure: registering Jon’s car…(and Jon’s arrival in just 10 days!!!!!)