Driving...

I was leaving the apartment complex on Tuesday afternoon when I roll down my window to wave to Tukala. With a big grin, she proudly yells over at me "Hannah, when can you teach me driving?" I excitedly respond, "Really?? You got it?"

Getting past the written test to get the learner's license is a huge hurdle, especially for refugees who don't know a lot of English. Good grief, I don't even understand some of the questions sometimes and have a hard time memorizing strange figures about blood alcohol levels and details for when to yeild to blind pedestrians and how many feet before turning I'm supposed to turn my signal on. It's been an almost insurmountable obstacle for some of my friends, that has sent some on 2-day road trips to other states where the tests are given in their national language (Nepali or whatever else). While some do pass on the first or second tries, I've known some to take it a dozen or more times before passing. It gets discouraging and can make very intelligent people feel somehow unintelligent. It's also not something their pocketbook enjoys having to pay for over and over again, it's humiliating having to ask for transportation to try yet again, and it's never fun to have to give up another morning waiting in line and trying all over again.

So you can imagine that when the questions are successfully answers and the screen reveals the awaited message:

PASSED!

there is much rejoicing!

I'm so happy for Tukala - no more studying and worrying and frustrations with that side. Now just learning how to drive! Which is a whole other new obstacle, of course... She did well her first time! She was nervous but quite enjoyed it. I was nervous about communicating through language barriers, but it seemed to go pretty well. We had a good time!