Couchsurfing

I’ve been officially couchsurfing for three years now, although it wasn’t a change of pace from my normal mode of travel, as I usually found myself staying with locals anyway. www.couchsurfing.org just makes it easier to find and connect people. The idea is simple: promote cultural exchange. Trying to explain to family and friends, however, that you find random strangers by perusing online profiles and references, request to stay on their couch for a determined amount of time, and then head to a country on the other side of the world to find these people, escaping the sterility of cyberspace in the process, is a little more complicated. No rational person who values her personal safety and security would ever gamble venturing so deep into the unknown. And I will agree that you have to have a healthy dose of trust in your fellow man, an arduous task when the media portrays the world, and in particular, Africa, as a dangerous place. However, what you miss from not having this sort of interaction with the locals is too big a price to pay for me. If you are always staying in hotels, you are separated from the world revolving around you. You might test the waters during the day, but you always have a place to escape to if the new dimension you’ve broached proves too overwhelming. Backpackers hostels are good for meeting fellow travelers and insures that you don’t become a recluse—keeping to yourself when solo traveling—but you are most likely going to come across people who look and act like yourself. Couchsurfing forces you to put yourself in others’ shoes, seeing how they live, eat, conceptualize family, express emotions, complete daily chores, pray, you name it. To date, I’ve stayed in strangers’ homes on four continents and have not once had a bad experience. Africa was no exception.

Tanzania. I arrived to Dar es Salaam after a 10 hr bus ride as dusk was approaching. My host, Monica, who also has a fulltime job, was in the middle of MBA exams. I knew she had one the night I was arriving but through a misunderstanding, I thought she would be done when I got there. As instructed, I called her upon arriving, but no answer. Dar has probably one of the doggiest bus stations in the world. You show up with your bag, you better accept your lot as shark meat. When night takes the reins from dusk, the fear factor intensifies ten-fold. After fending off touts for about an hour, I sought refuge in the change bureau where a very sympathetic money changer let me sit with my bags while I sorted myself out. Giving him the only money I had on me, a forgotten 5 euro note that had been stuffed in some hidden crevasse for just these types of situations (I usually carry emergency dollars but was bled dry at the border as Bush’s foreign policy made US citizens the only people who have to pay $100 for their visa), I prayed that the resulting shillings would be enough for me to get a taxi into town or at least to get a room at the bus station hotel. 5 euros don’t really go very far these days, and there were no ATMS in sight. The very concerned money changer let me use his cell phone to call a few hotels and offered to get me a trusted taxi driver to take me to an ATM and then into town, but I finally received a call from Monica. She had been unable to answer my 7 frantic calls as she was taking an exam. We both got the times mixed up.

As a side note, telling time in Tanzania is tricky business as most people use Swahili time, which is shifted by 6 hrs. The day starts at 7am which is 1 am for them. Noon is 6 am. Midnight, 6 pm. Quite practical if you ask me, but a headache when you are trying to catch a bus or keep an appointment. You never knew if someone had successfully converted the time for your benefit so you had to make yourself clear.

We both apologized for the mix up, me for calling her so many times as she was obviously doing something important, her for making me wait around for 3 hrs. From there she explained the situation: her grandmother had just arrived unexpectedly and would be staying with the family. This meant that the bed I was going to stay in would be occupied. She asked if I wanted to stay in a hotel. Assuring her that I wanted to do whatever was easiest for the family but that I did not mind squeezing into a bed, sleeping on the floor, or finding a corner on the couch, she perked up and brought me home to her family.

From the moment I stepped through the threshold, I knew I had found a wonderful counterpart to my American family. I had just acquired three brothers. The oldest, Jonathan, who shares my own brother’s name, was always helping me with different tasks like getting me my bus ticket. The next in line was Isaac, back home from boarding school, who I was encouraged to send out when I needed more phone credit, and Stephen, about 12 years old, and the most polite person I’ve ever met. He would shake my hand each time I got home and asked how I was with a big smile. He kept an endless supply of fresh juice coming my way. When Monica would go to sleep early as she was working and studying full time, I would watch the Confederations Cup or Jean Claude Van Damme movies with my bros. Even the mother welcomed me into the home, not once questioning why I was living in her home (for 7 days when I had only planned on staying for 2!). We spent an hour talking about various topics from education (she’s a primary school teacher) to linguistic differences between Kenya and Tanzania. I felt an incredible sense of belonging. This woman, a collateral bonus to couchsurfing here, had taken me in and made me feel comfortable. Then there’s the grandma who spoke English but insisted on speaking to me in Swahili as I expressed interest in learning. She tried to keep me on my toes though, mixing her mother tongue in there as well. And Monica. Where do I begin? I took to her like a sister from the beginning. She was all smiles and laughs, brightening every moment. She took me out dancing, out for dinners, got her friends together for drinks at Malaika, a beautiful bar/restaurant on the beach, found escorts for me when she couldn’t take me around the city, and went out of her way to make my stay as relaxing and stimulating as possible. We had in depth conversations about a range of topics, most notably about relationships and family planning in Tanzania. My new family was not just the immediate family. The hospitality continued to the extended family. Monica’s cousin took me to her college graduation and introduced me to all her friends as well as set up a day trip to nearby Bagamoyo where I spent the day visiting historical sites with her family. [more on that trip in the next post]. These little things remind me that when surrounded by the right people, home is inevitable.

From Dar, I left with an American couchsurfer that was in Dar the same time I was and her British friend that was visiting. She had contacted a couchsurfer in Morogoro, a small town about 3 hrs away with a well-known agricultural university. Our host, Rogers, a student at the university, was the epitome of the couchsurfing ideal. The day we arrived was the eve of his last university exam ever. And yet, he hosted 3 people that night, giving up his room and valuable study time. Each time I have a couchsurfing exchange I become more and more impressed with human nature. I don’t think I would’ve agreed to host one person the night before an exam, let alone 3! He gave us a tour around the pristine campus, introduced us to friends and made us feel right at home. Too bad our time was limited because it would've been nice to hike in the surrounding mountains and to spend more time on campus. It's so rare to get to see a college campus in another country.

The third CS experience in Tanzania was in Mbeya, quite a different experience because I was staying with a French girl instead of a Tanzanian. However, the cultural value was the same. I arrived to Mbeya after a 14 hr bus ride and was picked up at the station by Aline, my host, and her roommate Bertrand. They ushered me to a dinner with her team (she is working on a water maintenance project with a French firm), where I got to stuff my face with beef fondue and cider while remembering how to speak French. From there, I went to their amazing apartment where I was given my own room, a key, and told to make myself at home as they both would be working the next day. I had planned to go hiking but had a better treat in store: I met another amazing Tanzanian family. Aline had met Fatima at the pool the other day and the latter invited her over for lunch, in which by extension I was invited. They prepared a meal for us and then we sat around and watched music videos until Aline had to go back to work. I stayed with the family to continue watching videos and then went for a walk in the surrounding hills and along the stream. Later, over drinks Aline met up with us, bringing a Rwandan girl from her job along and the 5 of us went back to the family’s house. The mother was so excited to see us again and had gone out and bought us Tanzanian cloth as a present. She kept saying how happy she was to have us in her home and insisted that we ate dinner as well. I spent about 8 hrs with that family today and now have yet another place to stay the next time I’m in the country.

I ended up staying with Aline one more day than planned as I couldn’t miss the party we were scheming. The next day I woke up early to go on a beautiful hike up the mountain to the white cross that studded the landscape. It was like a pilgrimage as stone markers highlighted the path to the promised land. I passed an old woman along the way, trudging along, had a conversation in Swahili and continued along until I met the next person, a woman cutting firewood who wanted to know what I was doing in Mbeya (not many tourists pass through). I was amazed at how much I was getting out of these conversations as my Swahili was not as advanced as I would’ve liked. As I reached the top of the mountain that overlooked the town, I was confused. What do you do when you reach a giant white cross at the top of a mountain. I crossed myself as if I were catholic, as it seemed like the right thing to do, touched the cross, gave thanks for the marvelous time I was having overlanding in Africa, sat down in front, took in the glorious view, took out my harmonica, and played “Oh Danny Boy” on the harmonica. That is the only song I’ve taught myself so far. I then made up some diddies, before commencing my descent.

I returned to my home, which is amusing in its own right. Aline and Bertrand were renting it from the police chief. This explained the men in the orange jumpers that were working in the garden that morning when I woke up. I thought to myself, hmm, these look like the jumpers that American prisoners wear. Must be another random article of clothing that finds it way to Africa (you should see some of the things people wear that have undoubtedly come from clothing drives). But everyone was wearing matching jumpers. I later found out that the police chief got free labor from the prison, and those were indeed prisoners. I have no idea what they were in for but they seemed nice enough. Each morning we would all go through the standard greetings as greetings are probably the most important thing you can master in African countries.

Aline was off for the afternoon so we went shopping for goodies for the party. That night we had a multicultural shindig that consisted of the three Australian girls I met in Zanzibar who had just arrived and would be accompanying me to Malawi; Fatima and Rukia, the Tanzanian girls who I had spent the day prior with; Pricilla, the Rwandan girl with the greatest smile and hair ever; a slew of Frenchies; a South African, whose marked snobbery was a bone of contention for the other Africans there; a Senegalese guy, one of Aline’s coworkers, whose brain I got to pick as my doctoral research project forever looms in my mind; a Tanzanian guy of Indian descent; a German girl, a neighbor of Aline; and a French-Cameroonian girl with her French boyfriend. Brilliant. After an evening of wine, beer, whisky, croque monsieurs, pizza, chocolate mousse, and crepes (this was a French party, mind you, and food is of the utmost important), we went to the only club in town for a night of dancing. Aline was intent on having a nuit blanche, that’s French for staying up all night, as she didn’t want to have to wake up at 5:30 to take me to the bus station. To keep ourselves a wake during the gap between the club closing at 4am and the departure to the bus station, we listened to loud music, ate nutella crepes, played the harmonica, jumped on Bertrand’s bed to make sure he would get no sleep either, and talked about a variety of topics. I was sad to say goodbye to Aline, because saying adieu to this wonderful person also meant saying adieu to Tanzania as well, and all the amazing experiences I had there.