In an age where the world is dripping more blood than hope, where young girls are abducted, exploited and sold to older men who should be fathering and educating them instead of spoiling their youth before they ripen, in an age where extremism is on the rise and religious tolerance sounds like an obsolete idea, it’s easy to listen to your mother’s advice about never talking to strangers. I can understand why that might sound like candid advice, given all the secondary trauma that news channels puts us through by bombarding us with images of child soldiers, unruly mobs with burning torches, and repeated reportage about the helplessness of Ebola victims. It makes sense why people would rather keep to themselves, build high mental and physical walls to separate themselves from the “others”. Which explains why most people don’t have passports but they have drivers’ licenses, because people are so scared of other people most of us favour individual mobility versus public transport, most of us would rather get into debt buying a car as opposed to commuting by bus and saving up to travel. Oh…but, what a pity, because it isn’t a scary world out there amid all the gloom.
There is nothing enlightened about living in fear, constantly looking over your shoulders, there is also nothing exhilarating about doing the same things year in and year out. Don’t get me wrong, South Africa is a beautiful country and I am certain that there is some kind of fulfillment in going back to your village every December or every Easter-holidays to visit your grandmother’s grave, lest you forget your ancestral lineage and become disconnected from your cultural heritage, that is a noble deed, no lie. However, there is more out there, Tony Montana told us the world is ours and he was right. If you choose familiarity and comfortability over spontaneity and adventure, you might miss out on splendid surroundings and sparkling conversations. Try to go see the sunset from Lion’s Head or go walk bare feet in Beira or go have breakfast from the 11th Floor Panorama Food Court at Hiroshima JR Train Station and tell me if those experiences didn’t change your life. Man, go to New York City for that American brasserie experience, do it by all means necessary, even if you have to sell your car and ride a bicycle to work.
The moral of the story is, instead of taking your mother’s advice about never talking to strangers, rather take Bob Marley’s advice about emancipating yourself from mental slavery. It’s possible to escape a life of routine and boredom. I am not urging you to become nomadic, sleeping under bridges and eating out of trash bins, what I am saying is, by all means, you must travel, and if you don’t have much money, no problem, get off Facebook and get on Couchsurfing. ” So what is this couch surfing thing of yours?” asked my mother with a stern face when I was trying to tell her about the deep kindness and humility I had experienced in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia on my recent couch-surfing sojourns. Couch-surfing is a social network, much like Facebook, except unlike the latter, it doesn’t end at how-many-friends-that-you-never-talk-to-can-you-get, the former is more like a hospitality-exchange network that pairs travelers looking for a place to crash with locals willing to accommodate them. To couch surf then means, the practice of temporarily lodging with strangers, FOR FREE.
Thanks to Couch-surfing, I got to eat out of food trucks in the Zambezi, I got to experience the wonder that is Victoria Falls. In Francistown I had slow cooked lamb with shallots, fennel and broad beans. My host in Kasane, was also hosting two American girls and an Austrian bloke the same night, we ended up playing a drinking game called Flip, Sip or Strip, after 25 or so litres of St Louis Lager (probably the best beer in Botswana) we decided to teach each other the whole Michael Jackson’s Thriller choreography. Good thing to inebriate your guests is totally encouraged on Couch-surfing. Next I am going to the Barbados to try out Rihanna’s favourite Caribbean dish, salt fish and Callaloo, hope to see you there. Cheers, here is to consorting with the wild and the free, for free…see what I did there? *inserts a wink*