Another trip to the VIO office

I was still in bed when David came to get me yesterday. Yes, it was about 10:20, but I was still in bed with a wretched cold. I was miserable--coughing, sniffling, head throbbing--but I dutifully climbed into the car and went with David to the VIO office. After all, they'd said to come again Friday to get my photo taken.

We had to park a "block" away from the building (there aren't really any such things as blocks here, but you can imagine the distance). The traders on the corner all called out to me as we passed, but I ignored them. My brain wasn't functioning well, as it was. We climbed the steps to the building that hosts the VIO office and internal revenue services. David had to practically drag me part of the way. When we arrived in the road safety office, where they would take my photo, they had me sit in a chair facing the camera. David's contact informed him that his license was ready to be picked up, so David went back to a different office. After he left, the VIO people asked me to move to a different chair; I was apparently sitting in the photo chair. So I moved over to a desk with two chairs, and sat beside a woman who had a stack of forms. I couldn't tell what she was doing exactly, but it seemed that she was copying information from the forms into a heavy ledger beside her. I didn't envy her. I put my head down on the desk and waited for instructions--or for David, whichever came first.

After twenty minutes, David arrived back. He showed me his license--which looks pretty spiffy, I have to admit--and was told they hadn't found my form yet. So David went over to a desk and was given a stack of forms to look through. After another five minutes or so, he came across my form and handed it to the officers. After they took a young man's photo, they asked me to sit back in the photo chair. Ten seconds later, they asked me to move again, without having taken my photo. Another man sat in the chair, was "snapped," and then they asked me to sit in the chair again.

The woman asked me to look in the camera, and she snapped me. I didn't know whether to smile or not; most formal photos here are absolutely-no-smile shots, so I tried to look pleasant without exactly smiling. Of course, I felt like I'd been run over by a truck, so how could I look pleasant, in truth? But I tried. I got up, signed my new signature on the electronic pad (I was really impressed by all the computer equipment at that desk!), pressed my right thumb against the electronic reader, and waited. She sighed and asked me to sit down again. It took two more tries before she got a decent photo of me because people kept walking across the room as she snapped the photo. Finally, she said I could go, and David and I left. We walked back to our car as it was starting to rain, and it rained until after 19:00. David's VIO contact called in the afternoon to say my license was ready for pick-up, but we said we'd collect it Monday.

So on Monday, I should have my Nigerian national driver's license!! (SHOULD...)