A Hitchhiker's Guide to Africa

I had a surreal moment when hitching back to Mzimba last Wednesday. I found myself in a minivan packed tight as sardines with an array of neon dresses. A van so full that the front passenger seat was pushed all the way forward, my knees abutted the glove compartment dimpling them wit the Toyota logo. My giant pack lay atop my lap, my head barely peaked over the top. My sack of vegetables was wedged beneath my legs. The driver, one of the newly immigrated Chinese flooding into Africa right now, greeted me. His English was minimal. He was nice enough to pick me up, but our ride most mostly silent. Each time we approached a road block, he'd roll down his window while maintaining a steady gaze forward and hand the police officer a 100 kwacha bill (that's effectively $0.30 now). They take it and open the gate. He manages to say, “Police corrupt.” I acknowledge this and suggest it's quite true. We continue on with the sounds of Chinese pop songs to fill our ears. I read a bit to pass the two hours or so until we reach our destination. As I sat there, folded tightly into that cramped seat and occasionally trying to find something simple enough to say, I realized that this is my life here. I travel from place to place upon nothing but the generosity of other's. And the places and situations I find myself in are often comical. Or at least that's how I choose to look at them. That very morning I was on the side of the road just outside Lilongwe. I'd been there long enough for a few cars to pass and indicate that they were just around. It was starting to get irritating. The sun didn't help matters, Malawi seems chronically short of shade. I stuck my hands in my pocket, harrumphing, when I found a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup I'd put there that morning. It was a delight, melted a bit from my body heat and the unrelenting sun, but I still licked the wrapper clean. Just as soon as I did a fine white sedan pulls over. I run up and lean into the window to ask the driver how far he's going. If I'm to find a car that's only going to take me a couple kilometers down the road when I need to go 400km, it's not really to my advantage. Often people stop with the intention of taking you to a bus stage, which is in the center of some small town. However, that's completely antithetical to my hitching strategy, which relies on me looking destitute in the middle of nowhere, people then feel pity and stop. Thus, I ask to know whether they're going the distance. This gentleman demurs. He quickly snaps, “It don't matter how far I'm going, whenever someone offers you a ride, you get in.” I briefly reflected on this and how my mother would have a differing opinion. I don't ponder long though and I open the door and shove my bag across the leather of the spacious back seat. This man informed he was once the premier boxer in Malawi, Ben Chitenje. He went on for a bit, reminiscing on the old days or, as he put it, educating me on vital sports history. I nodded, giving him peremptory gestures. It's in my best interest to agree, if not verbally at least by nodding, with the driver – I want to get where I'm going after all. After a spell, he pulls over at a convenience store and gives me a 1000 kwacha. I'm to buy us all drinks. I do so and come back out, handing out the sodas and then handing him back the change. He won't accept it. I'm to keep it. I attempt to challenge this assertion, but he's not the type to back down. So I shrug and settle back in with my Coke Light, gaze out at the quickly passing scenery; that's just the way it is. We reach his destination, just before Kasungu, about halfway to Mzimba. He lets me out in the middle of a trading center. I walk out of town. I need to find a spot where I look appropriately pathetic. I settle down after a kilometer or so and as I turn around a shiny, new truck is swiftly making it across the stretch I just walked. I start to wave my hand up and down. They don't seem to be slowing and when they pass I curse under my breath. I walk back over to my pack when I hear a honk. I turn, they've stopped a bit up the road. I run up to it. It's a truck full of immaculately dressed tobacco buyers. They tell me to get in and off they are, speeding along. They offer me a cake, they all seem to be eating one, I oblige, this is my lunch today. They can only take me as far as Kasungu, but it's OK, I do need to get on the other side of that town if I'm to find anything going the rest of the distance. The driver seems very keen on my strategy. He suggests driving me to the opposite side of Kasungu and leaving me in a bare patch of nothing on the side of the road. As discourteous as it sounds, it's exactly where I wanted to be. I pull out my bags, settle them beside the tarmac and look up. A stuffed box of a van is hurtling up the road at me. I extend my arm and flutter it up and down. He slows down and stops before me. I lean into the window and the Chinaman says, “Herro, how are you?” He's going straight to Mzimba, my destination. No need to peddle myself at the turnoff to Mzimba. No need to hassle another driver to complete the distance. This is my last ride of the day before my matola takes me home. I relax, well as much as I can in this cramped space. I pull my book out of my bag. I'm reading the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Let's see how they do it in other dimensions. Hitching is an unpredictable way to travel, but it never fails to entertain.