Leaving Namibia to see other African countries for the first time gave us new vantage points for some comparing and contrasting.
Namibia... mostly arid and flat with occasional hills or small mountains in some parts. South Africa consists of more varying landscapes. We probably saw mostly lush, vast rolling hills. Lesotho, known as the "Kingdom in the Sky" has the highest low point of any other country with its mountainous terrain. To elaborate on its nickname, most people literally do live and exist in the sky, high up in the mountains rather than in the valleys. Driving on these roads, therefore, made for breathtaking views. Interestingly, Lesotho formed its own independent kingdom nation (apart from SA, which completely surrounds it) largely thanks to its terrain when it escaped colonization as tribal king Moshoeshoe gathered his people to successfully defend their mountain fortress.
Each of these countries are certainly beautiful in their own right.
Development-wise, South Africa > Namibia > Lesotho. Part of this conclusion comes from the general sense of the places. SA has a more modern feel, and Cape Town is as developed as any major city in the world. In the towns of Lesotho, on the other hand, you get that more hustle-bustle "Africa" feel with busy food stands, large crowds and animals around, and low traffic control (with pedestrians crossing the street as they felt like it without much regard for motor vehicles). Driving through rural areas takes you through rustic farm communities with people living out of the coexisting mix of huts and corrugated tin shacks.
While traveling, we came to really internalize Namibia's very low population density* which has become so normal to us, when we incorrectly expected to be able to get out of the car to use the bush toilet most any time we weren't in a town. You see, when one is going from Point A to Point B in Namibia, this usually means driving 50-100+ kilometers (at least where we are, in "the South") through farms of 5000 hectares a piece, with very few souls or man-made structures throughout the entire stretch. In SA, other cars on the road were usually what spoiled our privacy, while in Lesotho it was often people who were working in the hills around their houses or farms, trying to get somewhere, or just enjoying the day.
On the note of population, because SA's 60 million towers over Namibia's 2 million, SA has remained the manufacturing and import/export center of southern Africa.
So back to development, Namibia has a pretty solid infrastructure. Namibia boasts some very nicely saved roads between virtually anywhere major you might want to go (though there are still gravel roads of varying degrees of courseness also), which gives it an edge over many other African countries in the eyes of tourists (most of whom come from SA or Germany (the country that colonized Namibia) and Europe). And remember that tourism is a top industry for Namibia. Landlines and cell phone towers (and internet!) are adequate, though, as expected, the degree of reception largely correlates to the population of the area (or: more bush = less reception). Most of Namibia has clean running water and electricity. Even huts in rural areas (usually in "the North") are often wired. Though facilities may not be of the highest caliber or number, hospitals and clinics, police stations, post offices, etc are easily found throughout the country.
And then of course, there's the topic of schools. It will be best to save this analysis for future posts (coming soon?) and for now just say that Namibia's education system strives to keep up to a first world level. Despite how little we've publicly written about Namibian schools thus far, we are full of many facts and opinions, which we discuss with each other frequently (though "vent" may sometimes be a more accurate verb!).
* Namibia is currently the second least densely populated country in the world after Mongolia.
