'Can ya drive?' Probably not.

The story of how I got my driving licence in Kenya

I learned how to drive in the UK but never got round to doing my test here. I kept putting it off and told myself that I’d do it after university. However I moved to Kenya shortly after my graduation.

I was actually born in Kenya but left when I was eight years old. Now that my parents had moved back, I was excited about the prospect of living there as an adult and all the experiences that this would bring.

I quickly realised that I needed a driving licence in Nairobi and, as I hadn’t driven in a few years, I booked 15 lessons with a reputable company. This doesn’t seem like a lot but in hindsight was 15 too many.

My driving instructor was a young guy in a beat-up car. Within three minutes of our first lesson, he saw that I could successfully change from first to second gear and said: “Oh, you can drive. Okay.” And that was that. For the next 14 lessons, he’d pick me up, put some reggae on, I’d drive him around, and not once would we speak about driving. He would recline the passenger seat all the way back, lie down with his hands behind his head like he was gazing at the stars and we would talk about football for an hour. I liked the guy and had already paid for the lessons so was using them as an opportunity to just drive around and practice my Swahili. I didn’t feel like I was taking advantage of him for this as I’m pretty sure he was using me as a driver while he ran his errands.

On the day of my test, I was leaving the house and my dad said: “Good luck. Oh, and stop by the cashpoint on your way there in case you need to bribe someone for the licence.”

“Yup, will do,” I said, in the same casual manner. I had spoken to some new friends in Kenya beforehand and they had told me that this was how they had gotten their licences.

Surprisingly, I hadn’t ever dealt with anything like this growing up in Tamworth. Bribery is more prevalent in Kenya (or at least more open) than I had encountered in the UK. In my short time in Kenya, I had already witnessed people paying small bribes (£10-£20) to police officers to get out of small incidences such as driving with a broken brake light.

I actually lived near a police station in Nairobi and it was the wildest place. For starters, they had a bar. It was part of the police compound and was a real smoky dive that had an atmosphere like something could kick off at any minute. The patrons were either slumped over their drinks at the bar or playing pool on one of the old tables. It felt like the kind of place that should have had saloon doors like in a Western. I learned that this was supposed to be a police bar exclusively—a place where officers could go and buy subsidised alcohol and cigarettes—but over time they had opened it up to the public and the low prices had made it popular with the locals. People would come in, play a few games of pool, slam down a handful of drinks, buy some more booze for the road and drive away... from a police station.

My driving test was also conducted in a police station, which is standard in Kenya. Before the test, I was standing outside in a long queue waiting to be called in. It was scorching hot and the midday sun was beating down on us. A high-ranking police officer walked out, saw us queuing and stopped in his tracks. I could tell he was high-ranking, not by his uniform, but by his extraordinary girth. It was evident that his bribe money had fed him well. He cracked a wicked smile, took a swig from his plastic water bottle, waved the now half-empty bottle in the air and in Swahili said, “Who is thirsty?” He then tipped the bottle upside-down and all the remaining water spilled onto the arid ground. He walked off, laughing maniacally in an almost cartoon-like evil way. It made no sense. We weren’t criminals about to be interrogated, we were just members of the public waiting to do a driving test.

I had to do a theory test before the practical. The first part involved a guy pointing at pictures of road signs on a large blackboard and me guessing what they were. I’m pretty sure I got one out of three correct, but he stared at me and then motioned in a way that said, “Hmmm. OK, move it along.”

The second part of my theory test was utter madness. I’ve told this story to people in the UK and no one believes me until I show them pictures. I walked into a room and there was a table with what looked like a large board game on it and several people huddled around. As I got closer, I saw that it was a board with a model road and multiple hot-wheel type toy cars on it.

Model town road and hot-wheel cars

The police officer running this section seemed like a nice lady. She looked at me, pointed to a toy car with three wheels and said, “This is yours. Take it from here to here and talk me through what you’re doing as you go around the roundabout.” I managed to push the car around the course successfully and even reverse-parked into one of the spaces, which I think impressed her. I do wonder what would have happened if I had gotten something wrong though. Would she have followed my car with a toy police car and pulled me over? Would she have tried to give me a tiny ticket? Could I have practiced bribing her with Monopoly money?

Now it was time for the practical bit of the test - the driving part. I got into the backseat, which sounds weird for a driving test until you learn that there were five other people with me in the car. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “How did you fit six adults into a car?”

The lady that joined last sat on my lap.

The test involved each of us getting in the driver’s seat, starting the car, showing that we can get it into first and second gear, and then stopping the car. That was the whole test. It was my turn second and I was feeling confident. I said an awkward “excuse me” to the lady sitting on my lap… you know, so that I could do my driving test.

The police officer who was running this part was sitting in the passenger seat and calling us up individually. He was of the same fat-cat menacing disposition as the water bottle guy from earlier. My entire test probably lasted less than a minute. I think I did fine and even managed to put in a few mirror-signal-manoeuvre techniques which I had learned when I first started driving—although I could tell from the officer’s demeanour and loud tutting that he thought that this was complete bullshit.

In the driver’s seat after me was a nervous 18-year-old lad. He kept stalling the car and each time he did, the police officer would hit him on the head with a biro and insult him. Talk about pressure. At one point, the officer said, “Why do you wear your jeans so low? Do you have a father? What does he think about your jeans?” With tears in his eyes now, the boy responded, “My father passed away.” There was tension in the car and the four of us in the backseat didn’t know where to look so we all stared at the floor. The police officer—a compassionate soul—responded to this by saying, “Well, what would he think about his son wearing jeans like this!?” The boy stalled again and the officer said, “What is wrong with you? If you do that again I’m going to fail you.” Miraculously, the boy managed to get the car going and even changed gears. Although, we were going at a snail’s pace and the car was jerking back and forth the entire time.

We finished and got out of the car to learn that we had all passed. I hadn’t had to use the bribe money. I felt relief for a brief moment and then the terror sank in that I would be sharing the road with millions of other people who had taken this same test.

I laughed when I picked up my licence a couple of weeks later and saw the picture of me on it which was taken about a month before my test. The day before the picture was taken, I had been keeled over after eating something dodgy but I felt semi-fit to go out into the world the following day and do a driving lesson. I was dropped off at the driving school as I had been told that I needed to sign a couple of documents but was informed when I got there that this was also when they were going to take my picture for the licence. Looking at it now, I probably should have stayed in bed for the rest of the week.

Looking as grey as my hoodie

For anyone reading this that isn’t in Kenya or who hasn’t been there, I hope that this piece hasn’t put it in a bad light for you. I joke about the country because it’s home and I love it, and also because it can be ridiculous at times. However, Kenya is the most beautiful place with the greatest people. Also, if you’re wondering, I ended up driving around Kenya for a few years without an issue.

I live in London now and don’t see much use for a car here. I probably need to get my British licence at some point and will prepare for that more than I did in Kenya. I don’t know what to expect from this test but will have to remember to stop by the cashpoint on the way in case the DVLA accepts bribes.

Livin’ life in the fast lane,

E.J. Aljaedy