Registering a car in zambia... and other news

Hello again.

Seems like quite a while ago that we last did a blog, think that was 3 weeks ago, things keep on going we're in routine now so that means that just like any school the days goes by quickly and the weekends go by even quicker!

Car registering (this is long so avoid if you're not intereted in a story of incompetence, and time wasting)

When we wrote the last blog we had just bought our car, which has already been really useful in carrying people in to and out of town and on friday taking grade 1's swimming because all the school busses were being used or don't work! The main use of the car has been to take rich in to town to try and get the car registered as ours which back home is about a 10 min job filling in the form and then chucking it in the post. In Zambia it's not that simple, I honestly think they have devised the most complex and long winded way possible to encourage people to either not own a car or be corrupt and just pay people to get the work done.

The first step you have to take is to go to the police station where you have to fill in a form and get the previous owner to fill in a bit and sign it. However when we went there they weren't there so we had to go back another time. I went back another time ans still  noone was there so went back to school, came in a 3rd time and someone was there but they were off to see a football match so didn't have time to help and also i needed a photocopy of everything. The next day, 3rd time and a week later i was successful! The idea of seeing the police is that they check the car with their records to ensure its not been reported stolen, but they just see that the car exists and then fill in their form and stamp it. You then have to go to rtza (road traffic safety authority i think) You have to present them (who ever you find who wants to talk to you, no discernible queuing system exists you just wait until something happens) Then they told me to go and pay for a vehicle inspection so you go round the back and get a recipt to show you've paid then you wait a bit more and the guy gets bored looking at you and asks to see the car, he asked to see under the bonnet and was dissapointed when there was no engine (its under the front seats) He was looking for the engine number which i said was under the front seat so he decided he couldn't be bothered anymore and just filled in the form!

Next step ZRA (Zambia Revenue Authority) I don't know why we need to see these guys, but you have to. I went there straight after RTZA with the hope that we were just a few steps away from completion! which i think we are but this was a week ago and we've not progessed past this step. They looked through all the forms and as is the fashion gave me a new one to fill in which i did. But they wouldn't accept my forms as i didn't have proof i had money to pay for the car. I explained that having already paid for the car finding proof that i had money was tricky as it had gone on paying for the vehicle. But no deal, so go away come back. So i went back and got told i didnt have copies of the correct documents so i headed to the studds house down the road got the copies and went back, He looked through them and didn't look very happy that i was asking him to work at 4 on a thursday afternoon so said, this is all ok.... come back on monday afternoon it might be ready then. So welcome to zambia, its fine as long as you don't go anywhere or expect to get anything done.

Other news (welcome back those who couldn't be bothered to read our car registering exploits!)

Crowd as Luano house won the final football match

In other news Amano had its first house sports afternoon on thursday, there are 3 houses  named after local villages, We are in Luano house and needless to say we are the best, this was proved by us winning everything. Turns out the pupils got really into the afternoon which meant there was a really good atmosphere about the place. The idea of bringing in the house system is to give them a bit more practise of competitive matches in sport as well as other competitions throughout the school such as the sciece fair and other events that take place. If the first event was anything to go by it looks like it will be succesfully adopted by the staff and students!

Amano v Ipusikilo in the Hall

On Saturday Amano played host to a group of teams from ipusiliko street kids home. We were supposed to be playing  8-a side football outside but, as if to remind us of home it rained, it rained and thundered the evening before which turned the power off about 5 and then we were woken up about 5 in the morning by a thunderstorm and it didn't stop raining until about lunch time. I would be interested to have a rain gauge to know how much rain falls at times but i wouldn't be surprised if a few inches  fell in the morning, which made the ground outside a little slippy especially as most of the ipusikilo guys play in no shoes or in plimsole type shoes with no grip. So, we played 5-a side in the hall. There were a lot of games and some won by amano some by ipusikilo. its now 3 in the afternoon and we still have no power! so 22 hours no power and counting! (In the end power came back on after about 26 hours off!)

Back to a proper subject rich is  starting to get to grips with what equiptment we have in the science department, back home you would have a lab tech who in my experience, know everything,  so you just ask them if they have..whatever. or if they have any ideas for showing.... whatever else and they'll find you something, or make you something out of bits they have lying about. At amano things are different, you have an idea, search though the prep room for what you want. Obviously the more times you search the more you find so each time it becomes easier! So we're getting there.

In other, other news Rich had a haircut, Its a little  shorter than he's used to but his hair dresser did a very good job and was very cheap. Lucy was a little scared to start with until she realised that she couldn't really make him look much worse than he did already! So now rich doesn't over heat his cross country times have improved from 22:52 on the first go to 19:25 last week. just 20 seconds shy of Mr Kirk who its fair to say is Rich's number 1 target to overtake next week!