A Learning Experience

I’ve lasted 3 months in this country now! Oh yea. I’ve started noticing some unique mannerisms that happen in this country, or at least in my town. I thought now is a good time to come up with a list some of the oddities that I face on a regular basis. Also, I want to make sure that you know that these are my observations and do not reflect the thoughts of anyone else. It’s pretty diverse in this country and I’m sure others living here are seeing different things. With that said, these are some of the tidbits that I’ve learned about my site and the way people act here. Here it goes:

1)    Don’t trust African Time- What I mean is that if someone says that activity Y will take X number of minutes, ignore it, because it will certainly take longer. African time works in mysterious way. The other day, I was asked if I wanted to quickly see a nearby village and it wouldn’t take long. I thought “Sure. Why not?” It took 6 hours! What I thought would be a quick visit to a village took 6 hours! But there were reasons why it took so long, which included finding a place to buy rocks, feeding goats and puppies and filling five 200L barrels with water through a dodgy little tap. So now I know. It’s not even worth asking how long something will take because I don’t think anyone really knows.

2)    If you plan ahead, people will think you’re crazy- Sometimes, I’d try to make a plan for tomorrow and I’d get strange looks because people here tend to just go with the flow. I like that… to an extent. It gets tricky at times because I do need to plan things in advance and sometimes, its part of my job. Regardless, if I try to plan something weeks in advance, some people look at me like I should be strapped down with a straitjacket and thrown into a psychiatric ward.

3)    I work too fast- People are constantly amazed about how quickly I can get things done around here. To be honest, I don’t work quickly at all. I really don’t. I just happen to do tasks when asked and when it gets finished, they are stunned. Other times, I have to go somewhere to buy something or get something fixed and when I return, they are flabbergasted at how quickly I do it. I think time just works differently here.

4)    Simba Chips Index- Some of you may know about the Big Mac Index and for those of you who don’t, it’s an informal method to measure the purchasing power parity between two currencies according to the price of a Big Mac in two different countries. My Simba Chips Index is in a similar vein but instead of comparing the purchasing power parity between two countries, I use it as a quick way to compare the overall prices between two different supermarkets. For example, if Simba Chips (fyi, Simba Chips are the bees knees and are sorta my vice here) are N$7.95 in one shop, then I can figure out that that shop will have generally cheaper products than a shop that sell Simba Chips for N$10.95. This is still just a stupid theory of mine, which isn’t groundbreaking to any degree and you can basically do this with any product, but since all I buy are Simba Chips, its works for me.

5)    People will always assume I have lots of money- I don’t. In fact, because of some situations which have arisen recently, I can see myself struggling financially in the near future. Since I don’t have much, I’ve found ways to spend wisely. I now know that I don’t need to spend more than N$5 on lunch and if I do, I think I’m spending way too much. However, people will constantly think I have more money than I do, whether it’s a kid on the street or someone who knows my situation. It gets a little bothersome at times but I think some people are realizing that I really don’t have much money on me.

6)    Lots of Gold Diggers here- I’m not talking about a person who only dates wealthy people, or someone who literally digs for gold. I’m talking about the brain-scratching, nostril-diving Gold Diggers. People often pick their nose in public here and it’s seems completely acceptable.

7)    People will think I know American Celebrities- You wouldn’t believe how many people have asked whether I know Jay Z. Well, only three people, but that’s more than anyone has asked me before coming here. For some reason, Jay Z seems to be a popular figure that people will ask me about. People have also asked if I know Barack Obama, Kanye West or Kim Kardashian. By the way, I have not met them. All I can tell them is that I’ve seen Obama’s dog, but that never seems to impress them.

8)    Conversations don’t have to make sense- Basic conversation can be amusing and/or a struggle here. The words chosen to respond to basic greetings in English can be strange at times. For instance, I may say “Good night” to someone and they would say, “Thanks, I’m good night”. Or I’d say, “How are you?” and they’d say, “Is it? Ee ee”. Obviously, English isn’t their first language here, but I just enjoy the nonsensical exchanges I have with some people at times. It’s a good way to remind myself of where I am.

9)    People will not acknowledge you- I’m sure this observation may not be true for other volunteers because I know people who live in a village are constantly greeted by their community. But I live in a town. A rather large and spread out town and people don’t really have the time to always greet you. For example, when I’m sitting in my home or my office and someone who I don’t know walks in, I usually think I’ll be greeted or someone will introduce me to them. Instead, I don’t even get looked at. I thought coming from another country would always make me some sort of mythical creature and that people would always ask me who I am, where I am from and why am I here. Nope. People will go ahead and have a conversation without even acknowledging my existence.

10) People do stare- I know this is basically contradicting the previous point, but whether someone will notice me depends on the situation. People will stare at me while I ride my bike. People will stare at me when I walk by a shebeen on the way to my local shop. People will stare at me while I’m reading outside my house. People will stare at me while I sit outside my house and enjoy the sunset. It seems like if they know they won’t have to have a conversation with me, they will likely stare at me instead. Or it’s because I’m just so god damn beautiful ;)

Me staring at a man staring at me while I was staring at the sunset

Well, that’s that. I hope this doesn’t offend anyone because it’s definitely not supposed to and I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m generalizing people here in Namibia, because I’m really not. I enjoy all the quirks that come with country. Namibia is also a very diverse country and I’m sure every town/village has its own unique traits. These are just things that I tend to notice on a daily basis and are situations that are in stark contrast to my life in a Western society. That is all.