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Everything posted here is stricktly the opinion of the poster and shall not be taken to be the official position of UNMIS, UNMISS, UN, the Norwegian Armed Forces or any other organisation whatsoever.

Wednesday 29 September 2010

Licenses w/ attaching and connecting parts

Again I'm reminded that the standards for training down here is, to be blunt, minimal.

Well, let me clarify: Not 'minimal' in the sense of inadequate, but minimal in the sense of 'the least we can get away with to prove to our satisfaction that you can complete your mission'.

Take for instance the test I had to take to be issued a UN driving license. It consisted of two parts:

  • Pull out of parking space. Take a right turn, drive 50 meter. Reverse and back into same parking space.
  • Safely navigate a few hundred meters of Khartoum traffic, including two right hand turns.
While not a driving test per see in the normal sense, at least it'll demonstrate to the examiner if you know how to handle a car or not. And since having a national driving license is a requirement to apply for a job in the mission, why bother doing more? It would be a waste of resources.

However, once the driving test was done, the test of patience begins... you bring your driving test form - signed by the examiner - to one office to be stamped. You then bring your stamped form to a second office, where the information will be entered into a computer and the stamp will be countersigned. THEN you can bring the countersigned form to a third office, where the clerk will look at your form and print a credit card sized license with the information entered into the computer by the clerk in the second office.

Yay bureaucracy!

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