When I stopped waiting

It hisses, it fumes, it stinks and then nothing happens. The minibus stands still. Cooped up like frugal chicken the bus passengers are simply waiting, while our German constraint for efficiency is rushing in our heads with every passing car. The street, which lazily stretching towards the horizon stays quiet except of a symphony of crickets. An old woman had placed herself in the red sun. Twirling her rosary in her hands she whispers silent prayers towards the endless wide. The driver himself just stares through me as we won’t be just the only white persons on the bus but also transparent. The others barricaded themselves behind their newspapers and smartphones. Nobody speaks a word but their gestures scream at us: You, after-product of a colonial past are not welcomed. In my preformed pictures of Africa the people would have just laughed, would just matey clapped on their shoulders. They would have put out their drums and the women would have danced to it with their waving colorful dresses. Probably they would have killed a deer with their bare hands, throw it on a grill and share it with everybody. It wouldn't have matter when the bus would continue. But now I just wanted to escape the situation, while the sun is falling down the horizon. Three hours later we are sitting in car. I left my socialized Africa picture on the roadside, where the people most probably are still waiting. While 200 kilometer bush land is just rushing by I wonder how absurd the standardized picture of Africa is that we Europeans grow up with. Of course, our limited brain needs some sort of orientation to puzzle something abstract like culture in a frame. But why do we nail down a label on a whole continent and expect to have it confirmed. Markus and Josh, our driver, are sitting in the front. I share the backbench with a mother and her two children gentle snoring at their lab. Almost ten times phrase patterns like „In Germany“, „but in Namibia” coming from the front.Some minutes later all the differences are chewed. They guys start talking about music. And suddenly it doesn't matter if black, white, 6000 kilometer away or here, right in the Namibian dessert, they share one thing: They love house music. Many sandbanks later I realize in deem doze that somebody touches my bare legs. With big eyes the girl is leaning over the lap of her mother and is scratching over my white skin in wonder. I smile. No, this chapter does not carry the title “waiting” anymore.