Driving school in France:
1.You enroll in driving school. You pay the fee.
2. You will spend a couple of months attending Code de la Route classes in order to pass the theoretique exam.
3. Once you start driving, your teacher keeps an attentive eye on you and the road.
4. Your teacher tells you off when you make a tiny mistake, constantly hollers at you for not respecting the distance de securité, and occasionally asks you trick questions like, “What is the colour of the car behind you?” or “What is the speed limit in the city proper?”
5. Your teacher teaches you how to change gears, where to place yourself in rond-points, how you should start slowing down when you see a curb.
6. A car comes too quickly towards your direction even if you have the priority. You ask your teacher if you should have honked the horn. She launches into a tirade about how you have forgotten the rules and stresses the importance of using the horn only when absolutely necessary.
7. You have faith in your driving instructor. She is aces.
8. You stop driving lessons because you move to another country.
Driving school in Qatar:
1. You go to a driving school. They ask you to pay a fee, then tell you that you can start after two months. They scoff at your look of disbelief. When you ask them if they will call you, they shrug indifferently and finally say “Okay.”
2. After two months, no one has called you. You go to the driving school. They rifle through a wad of papers and find one with your picture attached to it. They ask you why you did not come sooner. You bite your tongue and swallow back a snappy retort.
3. You brace yourself for a few sessions of Road Theory. Turns out, Road Theory classes do not exist. They give you an A4-sized paper with road signals on it and tell you to “read it because this is helpful.”
4. They stick you in a car. Your instructor spends 3 minutes showing you the gears. He then tells you to start the car and you to start driving, without you having any idea of what you’re supposed to be doing.
5. You ask your instructor, “I have a question… if I just want to slow the car down when approaching a curb, for example, should I push the clutch and the brakes or just the brakes? And if I’m on the 4th gear and want to slow down, should I go to the 3rd gear first, then the 2nd, or can I just go from the 4th to the 2nd?” to which he replies, “Listen. What I need is for you to be strong. You will learn how to drive. You are a strong woman, yes? You must be strong… for you and for me.” He then fiddles with the dial of the radio until he finds a station that pleases him.
6. You follow his directions until you get to a busy roundabout. You start to panic at the whizzing Land Cruisers, whose drivers think it hilarious to honk their horns at you when they see your driving school car. You gingerly try to enter the roundabout. Your feet suddenly want to dance the tango, and to your dismay they do, and the car stalls. In the middle of the fucking roundabout. Cars behind you swerve and start honking. You curse and are ready to cry, and your instructor restarts the car and tells you to continue driving. You are so tense that you drive the car onto the pavement. He steers you to safety. You are shaking in fear, waiting for the sermon, and all your instructor says is, “You have to be strong. For you and for me.”
7. Your instructor comes up with an idea to make you relax. He decides to talk to you. All the fucking time. Where are you from? What do you do? The conversation then switches to his family, his family’s medical history, his pets, his childhood dreams, his dreams for the future, the dreams of his childhood pets.
8. You have mastered the art of droning out unwanted conversation while driving.
9. You stealthily try to insert your questions about brakes and clutches in mid-conversation. You get satisfactory answers that make life easier.
10. A truck comes straight towards you even if you have the priority. Your instructor leans over and honks the horn several times, then shouts “Imbecile!” to the truck driver, who shouts something back (Probably, “To hell with you and your stupid driving student!” You wait for a couple of seconds while the truck driver and your instructor glare at each other. You wonder how your French driving instructor would have reacted…
11. After several sessions, things are better. You have stalled only once ever since, and not in a major roundabout. You continue cheery conversations with your driving instructor and occasionally miss exits. You are calmer now, thanks to your ever-calm instructor’s passionate quest to build up your confidence. You still panic, though. But this is ok, and, according to him, perfectly normal. You are a strong woman. For yourself and for him.
Currently listening to:
The Black Angels
Passover
