driving

Yesterday we went to make passport photos. Of course this went the african way, we waited for an hour and then got handed bad quality photo's and told to come back tomorrow when the better paper is in. So today we came to collect them. He had the photos still on the computer, this was positive. He pasted our photos in a Word document and pressed print. This was too good to be true, and of course it wouldn't print. So install other printer (yes they are rich TWO colour printers), reboot, copy paste again (of course he didn't save the file), press print. This time the printer had an error message; look at printer, change properties, change paper etc. It was all very interesting, meanwhile his mate opened a programme and then a document for several times just to discover that the same error occurred every time. Clearly he was a lower rank as he had to cut the prints after they where done. Another fascinating hour. Luckily we saw this coming and had lunch before we went in.

This morning we sorted out our television subscription, as the emails to the south african head office became boring and apparently are useless. This only took one hour, but did cost quite a bit, it is worth it; internet and television are our main source of entertainment. Because we had some time to kill before lunch and the photo shop we went for a drive. This turned out to be one of the best so far, a very african shopping street followed by a drive past fields bordered by plants and trees. This might well be a drive for visitors.

Which brings me to the following, driving in general and at night more specific. As in 'the west' taxi drivers and bus drivers are mad. First lesson, try to be in the left hand lane when passing a bus stop, this however is not a guarantee against accidents, it is possible two mini buses pull out at the same time, thus taking up all the road. Speed varies a lot, the official limit in town is 40 km/h, the average speed is 60. A lot of taxi drivers drive as fast as possible, easily exceeding 80. The careful drivers sometimes hardly move at all, which also can be very dangerous. When it rains most cars slow down, this is positive.

Driving at night is a whole new experience. Some roads are well lit, other have no street lights at all. Pedestrians do not understand that you can not see them until a few feet away. Driving at 60 and suddenly finding someone crossing the road right in front of you is very good for your adrenaline production. Car and lights. You would assume 1 car = 4 lights. This is not the case. Back lights are obsolete, obviously because they don't help you see anything. One front light is sufficient. The worst are the numerous people who don't know that your lights don't have to be at mean beam (groot licht), often you will find yourself half closing your eyes and hoping you'll pass the car coming at you without hitting anything or anyone. Needless to say, driving at night isn't my favourite past time, but it's hard to avoid when the sun sets at 18.00.

We did see a car the other day which to a downhill turn a bit to fast and ended upside down.