A Note on Convenience

I’ve done a lot of traveling in the past few weeks. For reference on Google Maps, I went from Windhoek to Mariental to Gibeon back to Windhoek and then to Etosha. While in Etosha, we started from the East end and drove all the way through the park to Tsumeb and then took the B1 back to Windhoek. So a lot of driving on a bumpy bus. I’ve also done a lot of driving in America as well. Commuting back and forth across Maryland as well as from Maryland to Massachusetts at the beginning and end of the summer. So I’ve done a lot of driving in both countries, and I think it’s safe for me to compare the two. And here’s what I’ve arrived at as a comparison: America is just so goddamn convenient.

In Namibia, most everything shuts down at seven. Everything except the restaurants and bars. The shops, the grocery stores, etc. In America, there’s always something open, no matter what time of the day it is. If I needed to, I could go out at three in the morning to get a roll of dental floss, a soda, whatever. There are even convenience stores, for goodness sake! Stores where you can buy convenience! This ties into the whole travel thing. When travelling in the US, specifically on the east coast where I’ve done most of my traveling, if you need something you can always wait 15 minutes or so for the next exit to get convenience. There are lots of signs on US highways telling you where you can get gas, food, and lodging, not to mention the distances to each town. In Namibia, it’s quite different. It’s not a densely populated country like the US. You can just drive on the highway for hours and not see a thing. I imagine that’s what it’s like out in the Midwest, but I’ve never been there so I couldn’t really say. All I know is, instead of seeing signs every five minutes telling you where you can get convenience and how far away that convenience is, you’ll see one sign that says, for example, “Okahandja 110.” It will only tell you the next town coming up, not the towns that come after it. And to be fair there are signs for the tourism lodges and guest farms. But those are few and far between, and way off the highway. You’ll also see signs that say “D1456” or something like that. A D with a four-digit number coming after it. Those are little dirt roads that may or may not lead to nowhere. I’d like to find out sometime. But it’s hard to be convenient when all the towns are spread so far apart and there’s nothing but landscape in between. And the population of Namibia is maybe only a third of that of New York City, but the country is the size of two Californias. Another thing, not very many people drive cars. The major highways are all two lanes, but it’s not a really a problem. You don’t see very many cars on the road. I don’t think very many people own cars, and if they do they only drive them short distances. It’d be impractical to commute from one city to the next since they’re so far apart. I think that a lot of American culture is centered on driving. Everyone has a car, everyone drives. Getting your drivers’ license is a rite of passage, and so is getting a car. Even the commuter mentality: It’s ok if I don’t live where I work, because I can just drive there. But it’s not surprising in a country where everyone can afford to own their own car and in most cases multiple cars. And I think that’s what makes a huge difference as well. I’ve seen people driving carts with horses and donkeys next to the highway and even people just walking on the shoulder (when there was one).

Regardless, Namibia is nowhere near as convenient as the United States. It has a smaller population with fewer cars and fewer major cities. And that’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. Just different. Just one thing to think about: How often do you go to Wal-Mart at three in the morning to buy dental floss? Do you really need all that convenience?