Welcome to life in the hood
Many of us are probably accustomed to the saying that when it rains it pours, or that common sense isn’t always as common. Those and many others are what the learned people referred to as Murphy’s Laws.
I have always wondered what came over this Murphy guy to make such ingenious discoveries, but I guess the dude was just bored. Even you and I can come up with the most ingenious of discoveries if we were bored.
But nothing beats Namibia’s own set of Murphy’s Laws. Yes, we have our very own version or interpretation of these wonderful laws devised by Sir Murphy. Allow me to take you through some of them.
Hunger is the best cook
I have never liked my partner’s cooking. Seriously, her food starts with an aftertaste and the salad often tastes like engine oil. But when I am hungry and sitting at the nicely laid dinner table and playing with the cutlery in anticipation of the looming dinner, she is the best cook ever! She could feed me with the same meal I refused the previous night and I will be religiously worshipping ‘the hands that prepared this broth’.?
Your dream woman usually finds you with your worst shirt on
This one is no joke fellas. Ever had your eye on a pretty woman who happens to be a client at the company you worked for? So you had a coincidental meeting at the reception where she dropped her pen, a sign that she wants you to notice her, and you never saw her again after that? Well, you will see her again in the mall – when you have that shirt you inherited from Uncle Komeheke – and it will be your last meeting.
We borrow, but do not return
If the stories that Namibians come up with when they are intending to borrow money from you were turned into movie scripts, we will take the Oscars hands down! We are good at providing award-winning stories on why we need to borrow money, yet when it comes to returning it – we are nowhere to be seen. Our cell phones are switched off or a name like Charles Tjatindi becomes Tangeni Hamuheke!
It is never our fault when things go wrong
Namibians, especially company bosses are good at shifting the blame for things that are clearly their own doing. If for instance your boss messes up on an important contract, he will blame the poor messenger for making less photocopies of the presentation instead of acknowledging that he was the one who failed to make an impression on the prospective clients.
If you are the kind that always shows up late for work that will mark your downfall. You will never get the opportunity to redeem yourself and everything from why the printer broke down to the gas in the ozone layer will be blamed on your coming late!
The customer is never right
It is only in Namibia where bosses of restaurants and other similar set-ups first take the sides of the waiters before actually enquiring as to what the problem is. This reminds me of the boys of Penning Streets those days in pre-independence Namibia; those guys would join in on a fight if one of their own is involved and only ask questions later.
Eish, we were scared of the Penning Street boys and stayed clear of Penning Streets. For those new to Katutura, Penning Streets in the street that now houses Colonel Sander’s Kentucky Fried Chicken in Katutura.
Thank God Namibia is free; imagine how unfair it would have been for some of us not to have access to Colonel Sanders’ unique recipe simply because some juvenile delinquents decide so.
The longer the queue, the more Namibian it is
In this day and age where technology has made the world to be but a global village, you still find people that would spend up to three hours in a queue settling bills. Whatever happened to the internet? I guess Namibians would always prefer the queues as opposed to a computer when it comes to money matters.
My people in the Omaheke region would never trust a computer to deal with their hard-earned money from the sale of the cattle. Neither will the businessmen from the north notorious for their suitcase offices.
Until then…
[email protected]
I have always wondered what came over this Murphy guy to make such ingenious discoveries, but I guess the dude was just bored. Even you and I can come up with the most ingenious of discoveries if we were bored.
But nothing beats Namibia’s own set of Murphy’s Laws. Yes, we have our very own version or interpretation of these wonderful laws devised by Sir Murphy. Allow me to take you through some of them.
Hunger is the best cook
I have never liked my partner’s cooking. Seriously, her food starts with an aftertaste and the salad often tastes like engine oil. But when I am hungry and sitting at the nicely laid dinner table and playing with the cutlery in anticipation of the looming dinner, she is the best cook ever! She could feed me with the same meal I refused the previous night and I will be religiously worshipping ‘the hands that prepared this broth’.?
Your dream woman usually finds you with your worst shirt on
This one is no joke fellas. Ever had your eye on a pretty woman who happens to be a client at the company you worked for? So you had a coincidental meeting at the reception where she dropped her pen, a sign that she wants you to notice her, and you never saw her again after that? Well, you will see her again in the mall – when you have that shirt you inherited from Uncle Komeheke – and it will be your last meeting.
We borrow, but do not return
If the stories that Namibians come up with when they are intending to borrow money from you were turned into movie scripts, we will take the Oscars hands down! We are good at providing award-winning stories on why we need to borrow money, yet when it comes to returning it – we are nowhere to be seen. Our cell phones are switched off or a name like Charles Tjatindi becomes Tangeni Hamuheke!
It is never our fault when things go wrong
Namibians, especially company bosses are good at shifting the blame for things that are clearly their own doing. If for instance your boss messes up on an important contract, he will blame the poor messenger for making less photocopies of the presentation instead of acknowledging that he was the one who failed to make an impression on the prospective clients.
If you are the kind that always shows up late for work that will mark your downfall. You will never get the opportunity to redeem yourself and everything from why the printer broke down to the gas in the ozone layer will be blamed on your coming late!
The customer is never right
It is only in Namibia where bosses of restaurants and other similar set-ups first take the sides of the waiters before actually enquiring as to what the problem is. This reminds me of the boys of Penning Streets those days in pre-independence Namibia; those guys would join in on a fight if one of their own is involved and only ask questions later.
Eish, we were scared of the Penning Street boys and stayed clear of Penning Streets. For those new to Katutura, Penning Streets in the street that now houses Colonel Sander’s Kentucky Fried Chicken in Katutura.
Thank God Namibia is free; imagine how unfair it would have been for some of us not to have access to Colonel Sanders’ unique recipe simply because some juvenile delinquents decide so.
The longer the queue, the more Namibian it is
In this day and age where technology has made the world to be but a global village, you still find people that would spend up to three hours in a queue settling bills. Whatever happened to the internet? I guess Namibians would always prefer the queues as opposed to a computer when it comes to money matters.
My people in the Omaheke region would never trust a computer to deal with their hard-earned money from the sale of the cattle. Neither will the businessmen from the north notorious for their suitcase offices.
Until then…
[email protected]
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