2020, A Space Odyssey

Really, this year has been all about personal space.

After many years of standing in various queues in Namibia I can say this: my people have a poor understanding of personal space. I have been poked in the back by beer bellies while waiting to pay for my groceries; I have felt belt buckles brush against my buttocks at the bank. Men have breathed down my neck as I stood waiting to pay municipal bills. I have narrowly avoided being squashed by women while queuing for popcorn at the cinema. I have truly seen and felt some things, dear reader, and to recount all of them on these pages would take too much time and raise too many questions.

I have never been a fan of queues in general, but even more so I have never enjoyed having my personal space invaded, whether it was in a public library or standing at a urinal. I have always believed that human beings are best experienced a metre away – especially at family gatherings. And at work. Especially at work. I think that forced or mandatory hugging should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention. I evenhave a badge that says “No hugs”. Secretly I have always known that fist bumps were the way of the future, but this elbow greeting is just what the doctor and the World Health Organisation prescribed. I am here for it all.

The only time personal space should be invaded in a public place is during partner-dancing, something that I truly love.

So it was quite strange, but also most opportune, that when the COVID-19 pandemic made social distancing a sort of norm – I say sort of because it is in its early days – and even now with lockdown procedures being relaxed, social distancing was and is being treated as a personal affront to one’s dignity. But in the early days of lockdown everyone had to stand two metres apart for the sake of their own health, and also to save me from petty annoyances. What bliss. Hugging was a health hazard and I hate to be that person who says I told you so but I told you so!

And crowded places became a taboo. For the first time in my life shopping became a pleasure – the absence of spacehogging trolleys was sincerely appreciated, as was the patient standing in line outside shops to receive a service. Personally, I have never understood why shops were ever allowed to be crowded in the first place.

Hugging was a health hazard and I hate to be that person who says I told you so but I told you so!

But it did not end there. Places that I have long thought unnecessary, like malls and their attendant consumer culture, experienced a downturn in fortunes while bookshops flourished – they were places that offered a literary escape from the physical and mental lockdowns of the world. I can safely admit this: save the bookshops, burn everything else down. Meetings at work were moved online or scrapped all together. Three cheers for not seeing middle management on a Monday. Pavements around the city became more popular, too, as people walked, jogged, and ran more to break the monotony of continuous confinement. The outdoors were the thing – as they should always have been – and it was common to see entire families on the roads at sunrise or sunset when the heat was not so murderous. Spaces of all kinds, especially public spaces, were shared for what I think was the first time in my years in Namibia.

The way space – mental, spiritual and physical – became cherished led to interesting conversations about its importance in our lives, about how it had been rationed, controlled, and unfairly distributed, in Windhoek and around the world. It was even more encouraging to hear people talk about the pernicious ways in which space had been surrendered to thedictums of capitalism and corporate cultures. I am quite hopeful that in the days to come, with people having experienced the joys of working from home, they will question the value of commutes and sitting in dreary offices all day. As we have seen, if it can be done from the comfort of one’s couch, why must it be done in a conference room?

With 2021 around the corner, I nurture a quiet optimism that these conversations will continue, and that meaningful and tangible action will be taken to ensure space becomes something that is integrated into all aspects of design, business, and personal life. Because the freedom, relaxation and the room to grow, learn, and explore that space of any kind provides are things worth preserving and fighting for.

Rémy Ngamije is a Rwandan-born Namibian writer and photographer. His debut novel The Eternal Audience Of One is available from Blackbird Books (South Africa) and is forthcoming from Scout Press (S&S). He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Doek!, Namibia’s first literary magazine. His work has appeared in Litro Magazine, AFREADA, The Johannesburg Review of Books, Brainwavez, The Amistad, The Kalahari Review, American Chordata, Doek!, Azure, Sultan’s Seal, Santa Ana River Review, Columbia Journal, New Contrast, Necessary Fiction, Silver Pinion, and Lolwe. He is currently shortlisted for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing in 2020.