22 2 / 2012
Hitch Hiking
So I have a few friends in the US who hitch hike regularly. Okay, two friends, both of them boys. I’ve always wanted to try it, but I’ve been torn, because I’ve also always been deathly afraid of serial killers and dying.
In the US hitch hiking is mostly illegal and probably dangerous (or at least that’s what the nightly news has led us to believe). In Botswana, hitching is a regular thing. In fact it’s the only way to get to my village. My village is only accessed by a dirt road that is also used for herding cattle. So to go anywhere I have to wait for somebody to pick me up, usually hang out in the back of their truck, and then get to the main highway (only 17km and about 30 minutes away) where I can get on a proper bus.
Even though this is common, and everyone does it, I still can’t get the fear of psycho killers out of my head when I do this. Usually some guy is hanging out in the back of the truck with me, and will start asking me out, and I immediately start talking about my amazingly strong American boyfriend in the army who is coming to visit next week. It’s the same conversation every time. I even got my Setswana tutor to teach me how to say, “My boyfriend is a soldier. He is very strong.”
So although I probably will go back to traveling only by public transportation when I get back to the US, at least Botswana has shown me what hitch hiking is like!
