An Ode to Hitching

Hitchhiking is where the human instinct to move, travel and journey becomes the opportunity to peer briefly into the bubble of all of these different lives you are normally oblivious to. I don't think people have considered the unfortunate state of a society where two people moving in the same direction cannot move together, where help is suspicious. But if you choose to so view it, hitchhiking in Zambia can be beautiful.

I've learned about trade with the DRC from South African truckers. I've learned Swahili from Tanzanian drivers. I've learned about the safari business and white commercial farmers. I've learned about the different government ministries and military service. I've learned how bribing is legitimized with inane traffic laws. I've learned about the movement of people and goods according to the geography of agricultural markets and flux of the seasons. I've learned about Chinese investment, mines and the logistics of vaccination campaigns. I've rode in curious comfort with MPs and in doubt with barrels of diesel and roofing sheets. Hitchhiking is truly an education. 

One of my most memorable hitches was trying to get home from a musical festival in Malawi. For a day my world overlapped with the amazing world of a young entrepreneurial couple with the first food truck in Malawi. They brought the idea back from their time in the UK as students. I rode in the back, snacking on left over sweeties and having a mobile dance party with sacks of potatoes, thinking how the gourmet food truck craze of bringing crepes with rare cheese to yoganistas at farmers markets has some how found its way to my bum self in the Malawian bush.