Tuesday, September 26, 2006

culturally immersed in the back of a kombi

“Look at Edward. This is so embarrassing.” Gisella, my language teacher, was displeased. It was a few hours after swearing-in and Edward was plugging away at an elderly Mercedes sedan that had seen better days, the kind of perpetual tinkering with automobiles that is so much a part of life here. The only thing was he’d stripped down to an undershirt and we were sitting in the parking lot at the Safari Court hotel where a delegation from the World Food Program were also hosting a conference.
“That’s ghetto. Does he know we’re not in Katatura?” In Katatura it’d be no big deal to get involved in an afternoon’s struggle with a recalcitrant engine. Of course Gisella was always claiming that things were “ghetto.” Serving Oros –African Kool-Aid – “ghetto,” riding in donkey carts -- “ghetto,” etc.
Here in Otjituuo all of the above are practiced, diligently. One of my neighbors observes a nightly repair/séance with his 80s Toyota mini van. I wonder if it’s even become a question in the household what the husband is going to do. Or if he comes up with a “problem” with the car every night: “Oh, that Volkswagen steering wheel I put in the van isn’t working out,” then the next night “I’ve got to change the spark plugs with some from Mr. Verimuye’s tractor” followed by “Honey I’ll be out front. I’ve got to weld the seats back down. And I think I’m going to try that steering wheel again.” Our principal has been indulging in the national pastime recently although it’s because he hit a warthog with his hatchback. I think he killed it.
It reminds me of some other car habits here. If you are traveling anywhere, hiking by “public transport,” you’ll be sure to notice these quirks. First of all – “public transport” means getting into someone’s car who happens to be going to another town This is not a formal taxi driver. It’s someone who is driving for another reason and picking up riders means he can pay for the trip plus make some money on the side. Which means if you are along you agree implicitly to anything else he’s planned for the ride.
Once a near riot broke out in a kombi when the driver made an unannounced “turn” in the location. I remember the people were yelling at the driver, I wasn’t the only one who was wondering what the hell was going on. So we pull up to this house after driving for about twenty minutes through the location and then he just pops out of the car and goes inside. So everyone, about fifteen people, are just waiting inside the van. This lasts about thirty minutes by which point people are actually getting out and going into the house. The driver comes back and starts up the car without any explanation – people are furious but he doesn’t care at this point because we also pick up and squeeze in one of his relatives who we drive to another house before getting on the road to Windhoek again. It’d be like you’re on a cross-town MTA bus which then inexplicably goes to a subdivision in Hoboken, the driver gets out and walks into his aunt’s place, goes inside, and then twenty minutes later emerges with a bag of Doritos and a cell phone charger.
The driver is always a he. I have never been driven by a woman. I don’t think I’ve even seen a woman driving here. Back to Taxi Land. When you approach, especially if you’ve got bags, aggressive touts will seize you like the guaranteed fare that you are.
“OSHAKATI! OSHAKATI!” Something about me suggests Oshakati. I’m not sure what that is. At this point you find out the cars that are going to your particular destination. If I get annoyed with the aggressiveness of the touts I might reply with some perverse answer like I am trying to hike to Luanda just to get them to shut up. At this point you need to make an educated guess about relative safety and proximate departures. Like if there are two memes with a baby and a sullen teenager then you might want to hop in. Then upon seeing what appears to be the driver, no, is in fact the driver, drinking a 500 ml Tafel Lager. He’s also gesticulating angrily among fellow taxistas and blasting Namibian kwaito. But you might be waiting for another three hours if you decline that ride.
Now of course, you will wait until the car is full, that’s elementary. But after that fifth elusive passenger is persuaded to come in this car which is going “now-now” you’ll then make a turn to buy petrol. Even if you were waiting for one hour, you’ll wait to get gas until afterwards. Even if you were in fact at the gas station the entire time; gas always comes after the passengers. Not top off – just enough to get to the destination. It’s like in the early days of automobiles before tanks could accommodate much gas. What’s interesting is that even on a long-haul trip, like say Grootfontein to Windhoek, where all the passengers pay up front, the driver will still choose to only fill up enough for each leg, so you’ll actually get gasoline three or four times on a five-hour trip. And if you’re lucky your driver might enlist you in forcefully rocking the car back and forth while the gas is being pumped. I’m not sure what that does exactly. Part of it I’m sure is just the taxi culture. It’s what’s done. When you pull in to each town there is the one particular gas station where everyone does the partial refuel thing. I don’t know how the other gas stations make ends meet really.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

border hustlin'

“We’re just going to leave you there if you’re not finished.” The clerk said.
“Ok.” I said. I was hedging a bet that we could get our visas at the border before everyone else on the bus was ready to go. I paid the full R240, hoping that this would promise some measure of restraint on the part of the driver. I think that just goaded them to leave me.
It was 10PM when we edged out of Park Station. Johannesburg had a day-after- mandatory-evacuation-order feel to it. Even the fleets of white Volkswagen kombis were tightly packed in defensive formations at lighted gas stations. With the exception of a single derelict wandering down the middle of the street the place was deserted.
We’d be on the road since 5PM the previous day so I slept a little bit. That reminds me. Don’t ever take the bus to Mozambique. Not even if someone tells you that it’ll be comfortable and they’ll show movies. I watched Spy Kids 3-D and Cheaper By The Dozen 2. All told it took 44 hours from Windhoek. You can count on at least a bathroom break every two hours during daylight. After that, the drivers only stop when they need to relieve themselves. InterCape runs a tight ship.
I woke up every time we stopped. I didn’t want to be even second in line in the great scramble across the border. Around 2:30AM we let a father and daughter on a corner in Nelspruit which can boast a nightlife as lively as Jo’burg. I promptly fell asleep for a good spell, maybe an hour. I awoke and was confused. It was weird but it seemed that despite our ironclad schedule we hadn’t moved a bit.
Around 4:00AM the climate changed markedly. You could feel moisture in the air – humidity and clouds appeared all at once. Even though it was still dark you could make out that the veldt was yielding to the tropics.
We started to slow then picked out a spot among the vans, cars, and trucks arrayed into a giant parking lot of slumbering motorists – vehicles strapped down with mattresses, water jugs, furniture, the kind of things you see on cars at very busy border crossings. I had pictured some kind of one or two room building where we’d dash out and get our visas before the rest of the bus had realized what hit them. Not so. What I’d been expecting was more along the lines of the Nam/SA crossing. There you kinda felt guilty for rousing the guards. Here you had hundreds of people contented themselves inside vans that read in neon scrawl “THE BALL IS ROLLING: THE GAME HAS BEGUN!” or “R. Kelly Music” or “The Dog Is On Fire.” People outside were selling eggs. Babies were being changed and were not happy about it. There were settlements on either side of the border. This was the big time.
The line of cars that formed a giant parking lot open until six o’clock. Since people hadn’t started to line up yet (you have to get out of your car and although tropical you’d be better off napping inside your car) I wrangled myself among the first ten or so people processed exiting South Africa. That was the easy part. No one really cares when you’re leaving. Now a little bragging. I was the first person to get a visa that day. This involved a bit of hustling. A 500m dash. I then became confused because there was no one to follow. A few minutes later I found myself across and speaking Spanish to the authorities about my proposed trip to Mozambique. Where am I staying? Umm…Maputo?…muito obrigado.
They even made change in Rand. At the end of the it all I was basking not a little bit, waiting for the slackers who hadn’t bounded across the border at 5:59.