Please don't see this as a complaint, in fact, the entire process went very smoothly for us today (comparatively) AND we all came home with licenses in under 4 hours! Praise and thanks to God for answering prayer!
Step 1: Pray.
Step 2: Call ahead at 8am to see if all the offices are open. I did that, and was told they were open, and they would have receipt paper, and card stock for printing licenses.
Step 3: Drive to town with a truck load of people, as many as can fit.
Step 4: Go to the Bank, stand in line in the hot sun while they are an hour and 15 minutes late to open. (Heard a PNG man lecture the guards about opening on time, to which the guard replied "You're thinking like a white man! This is PNG! Time is different here." But it was funny to see the two men arguing.)
We got there early, and though we had to wait for it to open, we did not have to wait in this line, we were at the front of it! Total bank time, 30 minutes (that's FAST!)
Step 5: Pay at the bank, get a receipt then go to the receipt office (5 minute drive). We did, it was closed, they were installing new computers. We were told it would be online soon. Ironically, when it opened, they didn't use a single computer to process our payment, it was all done with a paper ledger book.
Step 6: Realize the Traffic Office is closed, though I was told it was open on the phone... try to call again, no answer, decide to wait for an hour while doing some in town shopping. While shopping, find canned snails, and snap a photo. Interesting little item collecting dust. No thank you.
Step 7: Finally ring through on a cell phone number (Thank you Ukapedia!) and reach a lady who, after some debate, decided to agree to come open the office.
Step 8: Arrive back at the receipt office, computers are installed, and we hand our bank receipt for which, they return us with another receipt.
Step 9: The lady arrives at the traffic office, opens it up, and we hand her the receipts, as well as get our license printed out. YAY!!! Funny thing was, I was too tall for the camera setup, so I had to stand on my knees and they put the camera on some thick books. Improvising, it all worked out. (I was last in line so I didn't get a photo of this, but imagine me where Kendal is, standing on my knees) The PNG woman in the pic below, came from Goroka, which is 2.5 hours away. When she told me this morning the dept. was open, she meant it WOULD be open when she got there. We arrived before her, and so once she showed and opened the offices, I made sure to express my thanks. Getting this all done in close to 3 hours and in 1 trip, is a huge success, and we were thankful for her answering her cell phone. We were thankful for cell phones, and we were thankful for community contributed information that gave us the number! Today was a success in many ways, and I'm glad it worked out well in the end!
Step 10: Return home praising God that even though there were a few bumps, we came home with licenses!!!
Nice Smile!!!!
