NOBODY makes better kapana than you and the vendors at the Singles Quarters, I tell you this.
But og these aamatis (young men) that sell pieces of roasted meat at the popular spot in Katutura have found out that they are the best at what they do and are getting stingier and stingier by the day.

I know we live in the credit-crunch era, but where are the consumer watchdogs when we need them the most? Shouldn’t there be some control mechanisms - even something as rudimentary as a scale to weigh the kapana like they do when you buy biltong in the butchery?

I know some of you think I am being petty, but the other day a fight that could have had fatal consequences almost broke out between a customer and one of the aamatis after the dude apparently refused to pay N$20 complaining the kapana pieces were too small.

But in the end he had to surrender the money after staring into a long, shiny knife – I think it’s called Omukonda. That is when it dawned on me that eish, Namibians are indeed an angry angry lot with everyone and at everything. You can get hurt or lose your life in an instant over the pettiest thing. I don’t know whether it’s poverty, the chilling cold that makes us so angry, or whether it’s apartheid babelas, but we seriously need some divine intervention.

Go into the supermarket now and count how many people are walking around with a smile on their face as they go about shopping. These days shopping is no longer a fun experience like in the olden days when you used to see mommy and daddy with their kids tagging along in supermarkets, virtually beaming with contentment.

I mean, who wants to be embarrassed by nagging children crying “Mommy I want this and Daddy I want that” when times are hard and a bag of rice that was N$25 yesterday sommer jumps to N$36 the next week? And when you stand in the queue to pay, watch your step and don’t dare step on Tant Mina’s freezing toes, because in this cold weather, saying askies would either land you a taai klap or a voetsek look.

A few weeks ago, a taxi almost rammed into my car on the infamous Nightingale Avenue, notorious for accidents, and when I asked the cabbie why he was driving like that, he just gave me the middle finger. Well, I had to keep quiet because if I dared to open my mouth, I knew what was coming.

Talk of relationships. Namibians are so angry that it is all right to kill someone if they cheat or commit adultery, but this normally only applies to women. Some young Namibian men were advocating on Facebook that women should in fact be killed if they dare to cheat.  When I challenged their stance, you should have seen the insulting comments - being called ‘thick skulled’ to being a ‘moron’ for daring to reproach them on a social networking site where they have the ‘right’ to say anything they want. I was lucky that I was only in their virtual space, but imagine if we were in the same room, physically.   

Some Namibians are angry that our evicted Big Brother Africa housemates Jessica and Junia dared to smooch or perhaps ‘do the do’ with kambeskitis from other countries. I mean, aren’t Namibian men saying that their excuse for having more than one kamboroto is because Namibian women outnumber them? So, why are they angry that our women are sharing the love with others who might take them seriously or even marry them? Or perhaps the all too customary melodrama which accompanies the /gamis phenomenon excites them because it makes them feel ‘they are real men’.

In parting, just a friendly warning to you Mbashu hoppers. I know most of you already suiped (drink) out your pay two weeks ago, because you were very angry at the little money you got for so much work. But today is Friday the 13th and even though I am not a superstitious person, take care because this is a leap year.  Sorry Ngo!