Getting our licenses

It's weekend...YAY! Well it's our weekend.

So today we got to work and met up with Lizzie, who took us to the licensing department to exchange our South African licenses to the Omani one. All we needed was a photocopy of the front and back of our South African licenses, a photocopy of our residency card,  2 passport photos, 20 Rials and to know what our blood group is.

We were given forms, which the policeman filled in anyway, seeing that it was in Arabic. We had an eye test and then the card was printed for us, easy as pie! Although I think it was easy because we had Lizzie with us. We were there for less than 45 minutes, which is some kind of record in South Africa if you go to the licensing department. We can now rent a car if we want to and we are looking into that.

Side note: They didn't even take our South African license, just the copies of it.

At work, we sat at our desks. We were told that we would be getting our schedules today "in shallah" (I think that's how it's spelt ) It literally means God willing but actually means it will happen in time, they don't know when but we must have patience.

We didn't get our schedules today. They are trying to work out our schedules so that we come into work together for this semester. In any case, it gives us some time this weekend to relax and explore. We might get our schedules sometime next week then.

After work we started walking towards the park, hoping to get the only Poke-stop in the area. We decided to walk to the house we were going to be viewing ( a 44 minute walk, according to the GPS). On our way, Hendrick (another South African) offered to give us a lift. He was on his way to Aliya (where we stay at the moment) to do some grocery shopping. We told him that we were going to view a house and he said. "No problem I'll take you there first and then to the motel."

Side note: As you can see, yet again, people are so friendly and nice here. We were told it's because they want people to stay here because they have a large teacher turnover. Many people don't make it because Ibra is so remote.

We looked at the house. It's a 4 bedroom house, with 4 bathrooms, 2 kitchens and 2 living rooms. HUGE! But the man said he is separating it, one side of the house will have 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a living room, and kitchen. That's going to be the big side of the house. The other side of the house (small side) will have 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, living room and kitchen. It's furnished but the furniture is gaudy. The house is also untidy and dusty. We are going to see some more houses this weekend, or try at least.

We are going to make some more phone calls to people about cars too, walk around, go to the park (THE POKE-STOP, finally) and walk around our town and see what's happening. I'll post again on Saturday to report on our weekend. 

This is a picture of the Omani driver's license 

Jurie took a sneaky pic of the fingerprint machine.