Hi! I'm writing from an internet cafe in the capital on Ethiopian-time Friday evening. I had a psychologically/socially rough day yesterday in the Ministry of Trade, and today I had an economically rough one there. But by 4:20 pm I had the job done and I have the licenses I need to go on to the next step for selling the car. It took two days to do what I hoped wd be a morning's work, but it is a triumph! During the first day Kaleu was with me to help, and Thank GOD, because I lost it a few times. The reason yesterday was hard was problems during the biggest of the 15 steps I performed (yes, fifteen, and each in a different place with one or more different people in a couple of buildings, though 2-3 times there was a place/person repeat). A woman kept asking for things that could not be given. For example, she wanted to see my investment license as well as my business license, but you're not allowed to have both -- they end your investment license when they issue you your business license. But she kept insisting that I had to provide it. We went up two levels of hierarchy and I was told I had to go to the Investment Agency and get a letter excusing me from not having an investment license. Now, I have been though this sort of thing before where the Ministry of Trade thinks something that is their responsibility is the investment agency's, and I was not about to repeat the futile exercise of going to the investment people and be sent back to Trade and then refused again by Trade. I began to almost yell in rage and frustration. Luckily Kaleu took over, and we went to another person and resolved it. That sort of thing happened four times, though not at such length. The place is a series of caverns, low lit, and filled with people. People like me who want something crowd up to long long counters -- say 60' long -- with the other people seated behind them. Ordered lines do not exist. You are elbow to elbow, arm to arm hip to hip with your fellow petitioners. Sometimes you sort of clamber up over and around each other, holding your papers out to get the attention of the person you need to process your work. Sometimes this is friendly and sometimes no. Often people push themselves in front of you. I usually loudly say ThankYou, and usually they back off -- they aren't expecting to see an old white woman in their midst. 80% of the people are men. On the other hand, sometimes you end up having pleasant &/or funny conversations with your fellows. Sometimes people are very helpful too, even to the point of pushing ME up front. I suppose there's some sort of crowd psychology going on, Kaleu wasn't with me today, but I managed the last steps easily enough. It was an essentially friendly day in the main cavern! I had to pay a fine of about $300, though. Still, I have to admit that I deserved it -- I had let my biz license expire, giving it no thought because I thought I was leaving weeks ago. So tomorrow I take the corporate-share-transfer minutes to Document Authorization and Registration and have them reviewed and edited. Then I have the required changes made in a semi-dungeon area -- I'm exaggerating: it's just a large, crowded dark place in the basement where many word-processing women are jammed together. Hot and stuffy. Then the document will be re-reviewed. Likely as not, the men up in the reviewing area will then discover other changes they'd missed and the cycle must repeat. NEVER have they caught all the problems in one go. One of the times I filed a set of minutes, I went through that bit with being sent to the Investment Agency, then the Mni of Trade, then the Inv Agency, and then back to the Doc Auth and Reg office. And when they were finally done, my old partners refused to sign them. But, ok, this is getting boring I'm sure. You'd "have to be there." [Posted in FML 7753]