Rights of Passage

So, I have had some pretty insane experiences with public transportation in namibia... but today, I honestly think that the comvee driver I had won some kind of prize for worst driver ever. I mean... so a couple of other pcv's and myself decided to meet down south for just the weekend. Its a pretty long trip for me, so I left at 6 am this morning to get a hike from Ondangwa, which was one of my Namibian friend's idea. Clearly, she had never done this before, b/c we end up getting there at 7:30, which is fine. Then, the taxi driver takes our luggage out before we knew it and puts it on a comvee... we thought he was joking so helena asks him to open the trunk and our luggage has been deloaded on to this bus. Meanwhile, there is a police man trying to get us on this minibus, which apparently is going to leave first. Clearly, this man is confused b/c, as we found out later, none of those buses were gonna leave any time soon. So I am getting irritated and we decide to go to Shoprite and get some food for the trip, and we find another comvee driver who tells us he is leave now and isnt going to wait to fill up the entire bus... instead he promises to fill up along the way. After waiting at our comvee for about a half an hour, we decide to finally go over to the other comvee that said it was leaving soon. The guy puts down our names, and asks us to pay, and I decide, from previous experience not to pay the guy until the bus starts moving...he's like no we are leaving now! And I am like ok, I believe you, I will show you my 100, but I will not give it to you, and seriously, the man is starting me down. But at this point, I am still believing that I am gonna go this weekend, but by 9:30, i know it is going to be too late, but probably will still go anyways. Still, we have not left, so I start yelling at the guy about how he has lied to me and how this is a serious problem and we need to leave, so the comvee starts moving! yesssss! noo... wait, we are pulling up to the gas station. However, we are not filling up, we are just standing there, picking up more fares. The police man shows up and randomly shuts the door about every 15 minutes to say that no one else gets on the comvee, but clearly, he's officially proved himself to be worthless b/c no one in any of the comvees is listening to him and besides, the comvees not exactly overloaded. So i wait another half an hour...clearly at this point I am livid and literally start yelling at the driver b/c i know he's gonna stop all the time on the way. I ask him to give me my bag so I can go to OMuthiya, b/c I"ll just take a taxi back, but he says no... at some point I threatened to not pay him anything, and by the end, I was like you should just give me my bag b/c i swear you will not get a dime from me. I doubt he understood what i was talking about, but he knew what I meant when i said "no money." but back to the saga... So we move again... to the gas pump. Then, we're leaving again... getting excited! but no... we pull up to the hike point again. And 20 minutes later, we're leaving again... and no... we go back to the gas station. We do this about 3 more times until I am at the point of hysterical tears, but then, randomly, this guy on the bus starts getting pissed too, except he sounds like oscar the grouch..maybe something scarier. Everytime he talks, I can't concentrate on what is going on because its hilarious. Unfortunately, his voice does not intimidate the driver into leaving, but finally at around 11:15, we do leave, and find ourselves stopping about 5 more times on the way to omuthiya. Somewhere in there, someone on the bus gets a phone call, and starts saying in very very loud oshiwambo something about how the driver is completely dishonest and cheated them out of their money. Thank god I wasn't the only one. When I got off at Omuthiya, they were still trying to convince me to go to Windhoek and were liek I will give you a discount, but not really that much of one. Clearly, they did not realize how close they came to me biting their heads off. They were like, ah man, you are not good. I was liek did you really think you were gonna screw me over like that and still make money of me. I swear I know they're just trying to make a living, but I need some service please? Off course my morning ended with a bunch of little kids from the primary school following me and laughing. I still don't know whats behind my back, but this evokes sad memories of the 5th grade and I dont want to relive them so I leave. Ah... clearly, we had no rights of passage, but helena thought of the title, and it seemed appropriate. I hope you all have a good weekend... and that I do too :( now that the comvee driver ruined my plans.