We all love travelling in Namibia, but I want to discuss a few issues with you right now.
Let’s start with the so-called ‘convenience stores’ at the service station. Tell me why the over-glorified cuca shops price everything like it’s a global crisis all over again.
I have more to point out, but let’s start right there in those fancy shebeens with glass doors.
Imagine the price of fuel today and then spare some for water at N$25, an old pie for N$30, cigarettes for N$90, and access to a toilet at N$5.
How is that a convenience?
Why would peeing cost that much when sometimes it is only a few drops that come out? Why was the lady laughing at me when I explained that I did not really pee that much and that I should possibly only pay N$2? What’s the joke there?
Wash your hands, pick up the pie, eat it as you walk to your car, start the engine and leave. Count exactly 32 minutes and your stomach starts throwing a fit like a child denied your phone.
The intestines start throwing tantrums, making noises fit for a low-budget horror movie. Then you hear your brain telling your lower half to tighten the excretory muscles to avoid total spillage.
The pie is dead and the body is aggressively rejecting it. I’m sorry, there is no other way to put this without the graphics.
Stay with me for this stretch. You are now far-far in the middle of nowhere. You see that road sign with a rest place sign and the situation escalates into a level five emergency.
At the rest stop, you hurry off the road, jump out of the car leaving it idling and the door open with your hands on your zip as you look up.
There’s a solid wall of barbed wire blocking you from the promised land. The sides of our roads are cut clean and open, meaning the only bush is on the other side of the farm fence. The bloody farmer fenced it off like they are trying to keep zombies out.
The only object to shield you from the curious eyes of passing seven-seaters is your car doors and the tin rubbish bin swinging from two poles. Now that is just nasty.
This is oppression all over again, because, tell me how my 300g excretion destroys your commercial farming venture.
I say Namibian farm owners must grow the hell up and allow us to take at least 20 metres into the camp and off-load the sickening crap we got from that service station. May I suggest that instead of locking out an entire nation from biological freedom, they could build little gates with an auto closing spring mechanism so we can finally have peace in this land.
Some 10 kilometres from there, a police officer waves you off the road, and his first words are: “Hi, where are you headed to?”
How do you respond to such nonsense when you have just left a horrific scene behind you?
Why do they want to know where you are going when you are clearly facing the right direction? What level of attention-seeking policing is that? So you ignore the question, pull out your licence and hand it over while wondering why you were stopped in the first place.
The officer holds it, looks at it and then at you, just to announce with a smile: “You may procedure.”
Yes, procedure.
But that is not even the worst as there are things we would rather just keep to ourselves.
Just past another town, a roadblock stops you, and this time they are digging through your sacred cooler box. You’ve spent an hour packing your ice and perfectly marinated braai meat in the form of a precise architectural masterpiece.
A guard with hands that just inspected the dirty undercarriage of a livestock truck plunges his fingers straight into your ice. They feel around your boerewors just to make sure you are not smuggling banned hoofs in a Tupperware container.
You stand there quiet, as you know speaking up will only agitate the officer. So, you watch your hygiene standards evaporate because you are paralysed by the fear that they might confiscate your dinner. We all accept this silent violation and drive away whispering complaints to the steering wheel.
At least they didn’t find a reason to confiscate the goodies.
We pretend road trips are just sunset views, good music and friendly waves to passing goats, but the reality is terrifying.
We survive the radioactive service station food, the oppressive fences, the grammatical procedures and the cooler box violations. Makes you wonder what other dark, unspeakable roadside secrets we’re all hiding in the trunks of our cars that we would rather die than ever write to The Namibian about.
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