Driving me crazy

We have been doing a fair amount of driving around town lately, so I thought I would ruminate a bit about how that's been going.

Adjusting to driving on the other side of the road has not been a problem. What is funny is how we will say "left hand turn" when really it is a right turn, because we are in a turn lane. There are other things that get turned around like that in our heads. The same goes for walking and it gets a little confusing when we are supposed to walk on the left but then forget.

Pedestrians have the right of way and take egregious liberties with that. For example, people will walk right out in the middle of the street at considerable peril and there is nothing to do but stop. The same goes for the cattle and goats. For some reason, I have more patience for the cows than I do the people.

In general, I find the driving aggressive but not any different than other places we have been in Africa. On the other hand, most drivers are exceptionally courteous and efficient at navigating the roundabouts (rotaries).

The speed varies from very slow to death-defying speeds. This partly depends on the type of car from the weighted-down combi vans to the Mercedeses, BMWs, and other high performance cars. Our little Rav4 is right in the middle.

Driving around Gab is interesting. Most of the main roads are divided highways so you cannot always just make a left hand turn just because you want to go that way. We go to school one way and return home a completely different way. There are also a lot of one way streets.

There are some funny billboards. Like the ad for a bank "Give the man with dreams what he needs", or for Nivea lotion "For the man who has everything" or the one from the Tax Board "Africa time is ok most of the time but pay your taxes on time" (Maybe they need to be seen to be completely appreciated). There are other ones espousing the goodness of Cornflakes and a (seemingly)thousand cellphone competitions (Blackberry vs iPhone). Some of the billboards are quite serious addressing social issues like alcoholism, HIV, and rape.

Getting directions is not an easy thing to do. Many of the street names are long and hard to pronounce. Even people who have lived here their whole lives don't give directions as we are used to. So, if we want to go somewhere, we look up or get the plot number and then find it in the map book. That is how we know to go anywhere. Other times people talk about which roundabout to turn at but that will only get you in the general vicinity. Luckily, Russ loves maps and we have been able to navigate rather easily.

I love going to the petrol station, because like most everywhere else in southern Africa, it is full service. The attendants pump gas, check the oil, and wash the windows. It's excellent. It should be great though at roughly US$5 a gallon.