hitching

                Before I continue any further than this first line…Mom, Dad, Grandma?  Don’t read this one.

                Hitch hikers in America are notorious for being murderers, crazy alcoholics, car thieves, and stinky bums.  If you let them in your car, they’ll probably reach around your neck from behind and hold you at knife-point, leading you to some hidden wooded area where they cut you up and later drive your car into a lake.

                Or so I’ve heard.

                Hitch hikers in Africa, on the other hand, are just people who are too broke to afford public transportation.  It happens all of the time.  It sounds racist of sorts, but white people are a scarcity here in Lesotho.  If you saw some white dude on the side of the road, carrying a huge backpack and looking for a ride, of course you’d pick him up!  You’d want to know what the hell he was doing here in the first place!

Do you know where I’m going with this already?  That white guy on the side of the road is probably a Peace Corps Volunteer.

                Yes, we hitchhike all the time.  Yes, I was just as thoroughly terrified of the thought of hitchhiking here as you probably are while you’re reading this.  When I arrived in Lesotho and volunteers were talking about “hitching” places, I thought to myself, “No fucking way; these guys are nuts.”  A week later, I was hitching back from visiting another volunteer a few districts away. 

Indeed, even Peace Corps staff doesn’t discourage hitching.  They don’t encourage it, but they say that “sometimes, there’s just no other way to get somewhere.”

Hitchhiking is also a great way to meet the locals.  I’ve had all kinds of hitches: silent awkward ones (especially if the driver doesn’t know English), really comfortable ones (Mercedes two-door with air conditioning), overwhelming ones (five unbuckled kids in the backseat crawling all over), exciting ones (cop car driving 100kph with a gun on the dashboard), and just… weird ones (in a semi-truck).

Some of my most interesting conversations with Basotho are in hitches.  During the elections last fall, I heard all kinds of political opinions.  One government worker offered to collaborate with the police “under the table” to find my stolen phone.  I met a guy once who spoke Spanish.  One lady drove my friend and I, quite literally, to the doorstep of our destination.  She said, “you are giving up so much to help my country; the least I can do is give you a ride.”

Once, I got a hitch with a family who was on a long road trip.  I think they ended up “adopting” me for the two hours I was in the car with them.  Every time they stopped at a gas station for snacks, they’d get me something.  We visited a family member’s new house along the way, and they brought me inside and introduced me as one of them.  I was almost sad when they finally dropped me off.  

Of course, I am always wary of what kind of cars I get into.  I prefer hitching with friends, although I’ve been lucky when I’m hitching alone and I’m usually picked up by a single woman or a family.

I’m really grateful for the perspective of Lesotho that I’ve gotten through hitchhiking.  Not many people here can afford cars, so it’s an entirely different culture from what I’m used to in my village.  I’ve been able to meet all different kinds of people and see so much of this country (and for free!) because of hitchhiking. 

After being on the “other side” of hitching, it makes me wonder about all of those guys in America, standing on the side of the road with their thumbs out.  If they’re all really stinky murdering ski bums, or if they’re just broke and looking for a lift and a good conversation.