Travel Trouble – The Global Entity

Health Emergency abroad: Solo Travel Strategies

julia.sarantes.andersson — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 15:35:38 +0000

The Global Entity

Health Emergency Abroad: Solo Travel Strategies

00:00 / 16:36

Eswatini healthcare for a tourist

I wake up in a sweat, my pulse is racing and initially I don’t know where I am. Immediately the brain is wide awake, something is wrong. I know that as soon as I start to move, I will hurl. In the dark I start reaching for my things, where did I put my shoes and jacket? Eswatini in June is midwinter and freezing cold in the mornings (around 10 degrees celsius). I throw something on in a hurry, skip the shoes, I can’t wait. I rush out the dorm room, through the bar area, out towards the toilets. It is just after four AM, the fog is so thick the light can’t push through yet. Nobody is awake to witness my sprint to the toilets. I make it, thank goodness.

After that, my deterioration goes quickly. I can feel how my capacity to think diminishes by the minute. By eight o’clock I show no signs of improving and I start to feel scared. What on earth is going on? Food poisoning? How much can a person actually puke? I have no money on my phone to call my insurance, I’m stranded. Not great, I know, but in my defence I thought I would be leaving Eswatini this very day. By nine o’clock I manage to send my friend Tanya, who lives close by, an ‘SOS’ sms. No explanations nor context, just simply ‘sos’. As I open my eyes half passed out on my bed an hour later, I see her standing in my door. The sun behind her, lights her up making her look like a saint. This day, she certainly was.

My friend arranged for me to call my insurance company and once they had directed us to a hospital nearby, she made sure I got a driver for the day. I don’t remember much from the drive there, there was so much fog in my mind that every thought was an effort. The hospital I get taken to feels like something from a movie in the 1930’s. Everything is analog and slow, even the staff stroll as they work. I sit on the wooden bench and wait for my turn, it feels like I’ve slipped into a time bubble. I look at the dust that swirls around, caught in a stream of sunlight coming from the window. Finally, it is my turn. The Swazi doctor is warm and present. It calms me down to talk to him. He takes a look at me and then my papers. “Sorry mam, we don’t cover this insurance.”

My heart drops. I put my head in my hands. It is already two o’clock in the afternoon and my visa in Eswatini expires tomorrow. The hospital my insurance is now recommending me to go to is in another city. I am cold, my stomach is only still for 10 minutes at the time and I can barely think. The last thing I want to do right now is to take a bus to a city I don’t know. The doctor looks at me with empathy and says that he will call the insurance and see if they can sort something out.

The nurses come in and put me to bed, they give me the winter blanket to fight the cold. When I was still shivering twenty minutes later, they put another thick blanket on top of me. The hours pass by and I manage to doze off a little. When I wake up, I feel a lot better. My stomach had quieted and I could feel my brain coming back to life. The doctor comes back into my room and tells me I have to go to the other hospital first thing tomorrow morning. I nod and thank him profusely for all the care they didn’t have to give me but gave anyway. I paid nothing. I knew that the next morning, I would be on a bus to Maputo, Mozambique. The hospital would have to wait.

Crossing borders when sick

Travel guide: how to cross into Mozambique smoothly

Do not yell at the border police.

End of guide.

Border crossing into Mozambique

Looking back, it wasn’t my smartest decision to ignore the doctors orders to go to the hospital in Eswatini, but at the time I felt I had little choice. I could not obtain a visa for South Africa and every time I tried to enter Mozambique they gave me trouble. Eswatini was the only country which granted me visa and welcomed me with open arms, I did not want to screw up that relationship. Especially now that I was sick.

In order to make the trip from Ezulwini to Maputo, I decided to not eat or drink anything until I had arrived in Maputo. I didn’t want to risk a public explosion of the insides of my stomach. When I got to the Mozambican border they told me I was missing papers. I pulled them up online but the officers wouldn’t have it. It had to be printed and of course, theirs was out of function. With a deep sigh of resignation I turned around and started pulling my bags back to the Eswatini side where there was a printer.

When I get back to the Mozambican border, the officers say I am still missing a paper. At this point I am fully convinced that this is the famous Mozambican corruption in action, something I have become all too familiar with. I have a full melt down, yelling at the migration police everything that comes to mind. It is not a graceful scenario. Somewhere between an indignant rant about right and wrong, in fluent Portoñol (a mix of Spanish and Portuguese), it dawns on me that it doesn’t matter. Whatever they say is what goes.

I turn around on the spot and drag my bags back to the Eswatini side. When I finally get back to the Mozambican border I am parched. The sun is so hot and I haven’t had a sip of water in over 24 hours. The officers ignore me for 30 minutes before they decide that I have been humbled enough. “Have you calmed down now?” The lady behind the counter says condescendingly. “Have you?” I retort, looking her straight in the eyes. For what felt like minutes, we stood completely still, measuring each other with our eyes. Eventually, without a word, she processed my passport and sent me on my way. Sometimes I just want to bite my tongue off.

I arrived in Maputo after dark. They drop us in Baixa, downtown Maputo, a place I don’t want to be in at night, alone, with all of my belongings. I quickly ordered a taxi through Yango, their version of Uber, and thanked my lucky stars that I had money on my Mozambican sim card since the last time I was there.

On our drive to the Base Backpacker, one of two backpackers in all of Mozambique currently, I ask the driver to stop by a shop so I can get some water and chips. I realise, I know this city now. Or, I know this place well enough to be ill here. I could feel how I start to relax, in some ways, I felt like I was home. The next day, I went straight to the Lenmed Maputo private hospital, where all the rich people and foreigners go.

Solo Traveler’s Emergency Kit: Border crossing
– Have enough cash with you, preferably in dual currencies.
– Get yourself a local sim card and ensure you always have money on it.
– Keep your phone charged but ICE contacts printed on paper.
– Note insurance-approved hospitals before you go.
– Keep your insurance info accessible at all times.

– Print everything! (booking papers, incurrence, passport, etc)

Maputo healthcare for a tourist

The hospital is huge and it is unclear where the main reception is. Each hospital department seems to have its own front desk and no matter my best effort I cannot understand the cuing system. Finally, a lady behind one of the desks directs me to the right doctor’s office. I walked through a side door and turned to some staircases that made me feel like I was on my way to sneak in at some club. But that wasn’t the case. The doctors office was cool from the AC and the receptionist chewed gum loudly.

Despite having been in constant contact with my insurance company throughout this whole ordeal, when I arrived at the doctors, my insurance papers have the wrong date. The process of international health insurance was hard and I will not bore you with how extremely sorry I felt for myself, sitting at the Lenmed parking lot, recording all my sorrows in my video diary.

No, instead I will share two observations about the Maputo healthcare. Firstly, the bureaucracy of even the most prestigious hospital is still going to be SLOW. It took me the whole day to see the doctor and do half the tests and get all the papers in order. Another week to finish the rest of the tests. Then it took me another two weeks to actually get the results, and a few more days to see the doctor and get the actual prescription. Lucky I had four weeks of visa…

The second thing I observed was that the concept of patient privacy is not commonly practiced in Mozambique, at least not at this particular hospital. As I had my consultation with the doctor, nurses and staff kept popping their heads in and asking questions about other patients. When I was getting my insides scanned, the nurses who seemed to be on lunch break, came in to gossip with the doc. The Swede in me was absolutely horrified! But I was too exhausted to do anything, too hungry to ask them to leave, or at least ask them to lower their voices. They all seemed so casual about it so I decided it wasn’t worth getting embarrassed about.

Maputo rescue and recovery

After the first doctor’s appointment in Maputo I felt relief. Then came the exhaustion. My plan had been to spend the month in Tofo, a Mozambican seaside town in Inhambane. But after the journey I had into Mozambique, on top of not having eaten properly for weeks (apparently I had carried the bacteria for over a month), I felt an intense need to stay put. I hadn’t gotten my diagnosis and medication yet. Just the thought of moving out from the hostel today, only to do it again a week later in Tofo, only to have to return to Maputo and ultimately Eswatini again within twenty days, gave me anxiety.

On my third night back in Maputo, a friend took me out to dinner. He looked at me for a long while, we hadn’t seen each other in two months, since Bushfire. “Are you alright?” he asked. I started to cry. For a moment I was totally embarrassed by my emotional reaction, we didn’t know each other like that. He put his head to the side and in a brotherly fashion said “Talk to me.”So we talked.

He helped me organise a search for a room in the city. The relief I felt as soon as I had taken the decision to stay my whole visa in Maputo, was immense. Within an hour, I had replies from seven different people that I had met out and about during my first months in Mozambique. Nobody had anything right now but they all knew somebody who might have something. They all wanted to help. Right before we paid the bill, I had a showing for a room booked the very next day.

A new home in Maputo

I came to the showing the next day with all my bags in hand. I had already decided, this would have to work. I had met the father of the house quickly the night before, he lived smack in the middle of the city, on top of one of the infamous, ancient apartment buildings in Maputo. I cursed my inability to pack light as I pulled my luggage all ten stories up. As most older apartment buildings in central Maputo, it had running water sometimes. If you wanted a hot shower you had to boil the water. All laundry was done by hand and the electricity wiring could also be considered an adrenaline inducing, contemporary art installations.

In this particular apartment there was no freezer and only one hot plate on the stove was working. Furthermore, there was no lock on the room and I had no fan. But the family felt kind and it was available immediately. When they showed me the rooftop, I felt that I had made the right choice. What a view! I have always been a sucker for roofs but this one took the price. To one side, the buildings and intricate life of Maputo spread out as far as I could see. To the other side, the horizon of the ocean framed Maputo’s skyline in a promise of pink light and foggy adventures. I could feel the beat of the city in what I could only describe as my hollow body. I needed rest.

The following weeks I practically lived on that rooftop. Some mornings I rose with the neighbouring mosque call to prayer. When it finished, I opened the gate to the rooftop and started moving. It wasn’t exercise-exercise, just small, silly movements. Not silly as in stupid but silly as in fun, as in making me actually smile and laugh. At this point, I knew three things 1) my body was super weak 2) I needed movement and 3) I needed joy in order to heal.

On that rooftop, with music pumping in my headphones I jumped and did cartwheels, danced and tried to learn to stand on my hands. Anything to get everything moving again. Slowly but surely I started to regain my appetite. It was a very still month for me. I reconnected with a few friends. I went to a beautiful event at Associação dos Músicos Moçambicanos . But mostly, I spent my time alternating between my bed, the kitchen and the rooftop. I could feel how not eating right had come to affect my whole nervous system. I was an emotional wreck.

The sustainable solo traveler

It seems to be a pretty common trait amongst long term, female travelers, to struggle with food. The traveling lifestyle doesn’t really allow for routine easily. Furthermore, changing contexts often, doesn’t give you a lot of known things to mirror yourself to. If change is the normal, how do you notice when some of the changes aren’t normal? It is so easy to be in adapt mode when you travel that you suddenly find yourself outside of yourself. I needed to take a serious look at what my needs as a person were. Movement; Joy; Time. And oatmeal. God knows I like my oats.

The whole getting sick thing shook me a little in my travel confidence. I had felt so bad! Been so vulnerable. Unable to think and process. My insurance was definitely not up to emergency standards, making me as a solo traveler, quite exposed. In that sense, slow traveling provides a bit of safety as it allows me to build a network of contacts to ask for help. But this time I only realised five-six weeks into being sick that I even was ill. If I would have traveled or lived with somebody, I think my diminishing appetite would have been noticed quicker.

Hence, going forward, I need context and community. How to get that as a solo traveler seems a bit contradictory but you never know. Either way, the thought of social sustainable traveling and tourism being sustainable for the traveler as well as for the place and people we are visiting, started to become more and more obvious. It became so obvious, I was embarrassed I had not made the connection before.

However, just because it was obvious, did not mean I knew what that meant in reality. How do I travel in a way so I am sustainable? When I returned to Eswatini a month later, I was still a bit shaky on my legs but my mission was clear: I had to find a different way to travel. A format adapted to me. I didn’t want to be limited to a maximum of 30 days, that was way too short for anything to grow! If the traveling lifestyle was going to be working for me, I needed to do some serious changes in how I travel. What are the biggest travel lessons you’ve learnt lately?

MTN Bushfire 2023, day three

julia.sarantes.andersson — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 10:21:11 +0000

The Global Entity

Part 3 of 3: MTN Bushfire 2023, Day Three

00:00 / 13:02

The grand finale of Bushfire festival

On Sunday morning I wake up FRESH and with an intense urge to dance! I get ready and catch a kombi (public transport in Eswatini) right outside the Gables, the huge mall close by. There’s supposed to be specific shuttles going back and forth to the festival area but I have no clue where or when they go. After a lot of looks from the local kombi users at my glittering face, and many stops and pauses, we arrive! We are ready for Bushfire day three.

In honor of it being the last day of the festival, the sun is paying us an unexpected but warmly welcomed visit. Everyone is dressed in their best festival outfits and the energy is running high. It’s not even eleven!? As I get to the Main Stage, Uncle Karly is blasting Beyonce’s Love on Top, full volume. I haven’t heard it in years and yet I know every word. It was the song that came to me as a divine affirmation when I took my first steps of self acceptance.

That was seven years ago, the rain was drizzling down over a grey and cold me, in a grey and cold Stockholm. I was dancing on the rooftop of my nine to five office job, singing and feeling every word of the love song as my grey and cold call center colleagues stared at me. In ancient Chinese medicine they say we live in cycles of seven years. Today, the song hits differently. I realise I relate to the song differently now because I am different. Its words aren’t the lifeboat it once was, now it’s part of my common decency. Towards myself. It feels symbolic to receive this song today. As I dance and sing, I am yet again reminded of the cathartic power of music.

Dancing, the medicine of my soul

In the afternoon I run into some friends from Eswatini who invite me over to have a drink at their campsite. After not just one, but two, distraction manoeuvres that should only be compared by the skills of Agent 007, I am successfully welcomed into the campsite. It offers a welcome respite for my feet to sit down for a while after days of intense dancing.

The parties are already going strong at the campsite. Apparently, there are people that come every year only to camp. They never enter the festival area! As the sun sets we start heading back towards the festival area but the view is so magnificent we have to pause. I walk away from my friends, I need a moment. I put my camera down and start to dance.

I move in a way I haven’t moved in years. The joy comes so suddenly that I miss a beat. I am dancing again! The rhythm is within me, the moment entirely my own. And my body is in movement! It’s not like I haven’t danced previously. I have. But not like this. Ever since I stopped dancing contemporary dance, over ten years ago, it has felt like dancing and the very essence of movement has left my body. It sounds dramatic, I know, but that is the best way I can describe it.

The pandemic didn’t make things easier, rather it left me with an inflammation and heaviness that further limited my ability and joy for movement. It brings tears of joy to my eyes to now feel the movement so forcefully present in my body again. When I return to my friends, I am ecstatic! “Who did you kiss?” a friend asks teasingly and giggles. We get back to the festival area just as darkness arrives, the tones of Ibeyi‘s magical songs luring me back onto the dance floor.

Navigating public spaces, night time and men

Eventually, the last DJ plays its last tones. It feels way too soon but I am dying of thirst and the only place where there is water is at the campsite. I say goodbye to Bolodoamor who has to go back to work and grab onto a 19 year old Brazilian who happened to stand next to me. He looks terrified when I ask him to get me into the campsite but is way too polite to question it. He needn’t have worried, everything went smoothly. I go straight to the camps ‘common area’ with the many fires.

I’m still sweaty but Eswatini nights are cold and I am bound to need the heat while I wait for my friends. We were supposed to reunite after the last concert but with my phone off and most of my friends running on African time, I realise it probably won’t happen. I’m torn between what I should do. Go home and sleep or stay an dance? I know there are plenty of taxis outside the festival area right now, but will there be any available later? Maybe, maybe not. On the other hand, public transport starts at dawn and I want to dance till then anyways.

I feel like my safety conundrum from yesterday makes itself known again. That as a solo traveling female, I navigate and create security, in relation to and at the mercy of the people around me. Au contrary to yesterday, tonight, I’m completely alone. Is it safe for me to stay? I hear my mothers stern warnings about festivals, traveling and being a woman. But then I also hear her encouraging words about standing your ground and taking up space. The words from my last thesis ring in my ears: the fear women have of men, inhibits them from moving freely in public spaces; less women in public spaces, make public spaces less safe for women. The safety conundrum of being female. Goddammit. I’m going to dance!

It’s around two AM and the campsite is packed! Happy people are everywhere, dancing, singing and talking. I make friends with a group that invites me to an after party. The guy who invited me wants to buy me a drink but all of the places have closed. I remember I’m actually still carrying a little bottle of alcohol from the night before and offer to share it.

When we arrive at the camp site party, we are welcomed like royalty. Mozambicans can host like nobody’s business! The music is loud and amazing. In a moment of weakness I succumb to the expectations of my surroundings and feel stuck to the guy that I came with. It is very evident that everyone expects me to be “somebody’s”. Tiresome gendered expectations… but I won’t let that chain me! The guy doesn’t seem to want to speak to me anyways so after trying to pull a whole conversation for five minutes I decide to mingle.

Everyone is super friendly and in a party mood. I only have time to speak to two people before the host calls me back to the guy I came with. When I get there I realize that he is trying to wingman the guy. Wingman him to me. Sigh. When the host leaves, the guy starts speaking to another man. And then another. Am I just expected to stand here? Am I rude if I walk away? How angry will he get when I reject him? But he has made no move on me, so how can I even reject him?

The situation is absurd. I’m not afraid of the guy, nor do I feel unsafe in my setting, but my thought process shows how extremely aware my whole being is of the risks that come with rejecting a guy. I pretend to see somebody I know at the party and excuse myself.

A new dawn: There is hope for masculinity yet

I fall right into the arms of a Mozambican poet who starts reciting love poems in my ear. As more of the creatives of Mozambique join us we start singing. I’m improvising and harmonising freely, text, melody and all. It is far from perfect but I can feel something has shifted within during this festival. It’s like I can access my creativity again! Gosh I love Mozambicans!

The guy who brought me to the party approaches us and interrupts us mid song. “Do you have more alcohol?” I look at him dumbfounded. Is he serious? After ignoring me all night and yet somehow making it clear that he is bothered when I’m socializing with others, now he wants alcohol? The premise of the whole situation is stupid. I feel indignant by his request and blankly refuse. I continue with my night and my new found creative powers.

When it’s an hour before dawn the guy I came with asks if we can talk. He wants to know what happened. Between us. Why did it get weird? The question shocks me. Not in any of my years on this earth has a man, out of his own free will, taken the emotional responsibility to initiate a conversation about what went wrong. Mind you, this is the guy I met three hours ago. My first instinct is to minimize my experience and brush it under the rug. It is a coping mechanism for safety I think, always looking at how to de-escalate topics that can hurt a man’s ego.

I don’t know what made me do it, but I answer him frankly. I don’t downplay nothing. I describe his behaviour and how I perceived it, as straight forward as I can. My words leave him in silence. I let him process what I’ve said, getting ready for his defense. Instead he surprises me and says “Jeesh, yeah. I can see that. I can see that now.”

From there, we dive deep into topics of gender norms, expectations, communication and toxic masculinity specifically. He does all the heavy lifting in the conversation and I am surprised by this man’s actual effort at four AM, post crazy festival, to understand himself and what happened. At the end of the talk he apologizes again for his behaviour, thanks me heartily for the conversation and bids me goodnight.

Imagine that! The conversation lingers with me as I start making my way through the tents towards the empty festival area. As I reach the site with all the fires, dawn surrounds me. It is my favorite time of day and yet I haven’t been awake to greet her in so long.

I see three men sitting on a bench, each huddled under a thin blanket. How much warmer wouldn’t they be if they just scooted together, sat on one blanket and used the other two on top of them? The conversation with the guy earlier left me the impression that he was starved for such meaningful and emotionally present conversations. Thinking about my own life, I have an abundance of them. It is at the core of my very existence. Just like the women in my life that constantly show up for me and those beautiful yet hard conversations. It must be lonely to be born a man. To not be granted the richness of non-sexual intimacy and the language of emotions. How funny it is to live the human experience.

Just a few hours ago I was painfully aware of my genders vulnerabilities. Now, I couldn’t imagine wanting to be anything else. Think what you will about The Guy, to me he will be remembered as the guy who took the emotional responsibility and held space for a hard conversation. This should probably be basic, bottom line. But he surprised me. Somewhere, some camp is playing Sjava’s Umcebo. The sky is a fierce color of pink and orange, the air wet and cold. In a few hours my friends are picking me up to go back home. What an experience Bushfire has been! What an experience it is to be alive!

MTN Bushfire 2023, day two

julia.sarantes.andersson — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 12:35:44 +0000

The Global Entity

Part 2 of 3: MTN Bushfire 2023, Day Two

00:00 / 9:04

Starting softly

Saturday morning arrives way too soon. It is day two of Bushfire and I am exhausted from too little sleep and also a bit hungover. Every friend I met yesterday wanted to buy me a beer or do a shot together. I am blaming the festive energy for getting carried away, I completely forgot I am not 21 years old anymore.

The rest of the festival people staying at the Legends Backpackers Lodge, felt the same. Nobody was rushing, thank goodness. We took a super chilled morning, stopping at the shopping center The Gables to eat some brunch. Mugg & Beans food delivers a level of marvelous heaviness; it sinks my whole energy. After six months of beans and rice and matapa, the fast food completely floors me (and not in a good way). It was truly delicious though!

The Bushfire festival area is already buzzing with happy, dancing festival participants when we get there. Feeling quite drowsy from the brunch still, we decided to start the day at the Amphitheatre stage. It is the only stage that has a roof and places to sit, perfect for my current energy level! The band that is about to perform has invited Namakau Star to front their performance. The energy in the audience is erratic and unfocused when she goes on stage but as soon as she starts singing, a silence lowers itself over the Amphitheatre. By the end of her performance, pretty much everyone there is dancing. The power of art and the influence of artists hits me full force. I think… I think I could also do that. I think I should… I’m supposed to write music and perform. Maybe that is what is next for me.

The highlight of Bushfire: Thobile Makhoyane

As I have said before, I did not come to Bushfire for the line-up. Honestly, I felt relieved that this was my attitude before coming here. Otherwise, the composition of Saturday’s line-up would have been disappointing. Being on a continent so vast and rich in music of every kind, a ´great international music festival´, doesn’t necessarily mean listening to European bands… I don’t know if it was the structure of the line-ups itself, or the selection, that made it hard for me to stay put at one stage. Instead I spend the day mingling between one stage to the next.

Right before the festival started, almost all of the people I was supposed to go with, canceled. I was afraid this was going to make the festival a lonely experience but today, floating around between different clicks, I just felt blessed. This way of existing suits my Aqua-babe personality perfectly! After losing my friends for the 11th time I decide to head back to the Amphitheatre stage. There is somebody about to perform that I simply can’t miss!

I arrive just in time as Thobile Makhoyane takes the stage. She is an artist from Eswatini with her base in Maputo, Mozambique. Her presence glows even stronger than her vibrant, red gown. I’m filled with excitement! With this artist, you never know what flavour she has in store. On the few occasions that I have had the pleasure of witnessing her live performances, they have never been the same. If the title ‘creative genius’ is applicable on anyone, it is Thobile Makhoyane.

What has been consistent in her live acts is how her performances always leave you moved. No matter what energy you came into the room with, you will be moved by her. By her voice, her energy and mere presence. Tonight is no different. After a whole day of wandering between stages, never really feeling settled anywhere; Thobiles voice grounds me. Something in her vibration makes me want to try to be as present as she is, not to miss a single thing.

Just like her voice made me run to the Main Stage yesterday as she opened Bushfire 2023, her voice calls to me tonight. In a matter of seconds, I have descended the stone laid stairs and find myself in the middle of the now dancing crowd. I emerge myself completely and thank my lucky stars that this is my life now.

Nightly Adventures at the Bushfire Camping

I ended my Saturday night in the festival camp area. Earlier that evening, as I discovered the delicious Global Village Food, I had run into one of the best people I know: Bolo-do-amor, Gil. It means Cake of Love in Portuguese and I could not think of a better nickname for this energetic entity!

Even though he was working all through-out Bushfire, we managed to get a few dances in together. Let me tell you, he is the best dance partner-in-crime that anyone could ever ask for. An energy that never ceases and with a light that increases the frequencies of everyone around him. Eventually, Bolodoamor had to go back to work and that’s how I end up at the festival campsite with a friend of Bolo. Let’s call him Mike. Mike is friendly and eager to show me around.

As the guards let us through the gates, a whole new world opens up before me. Fresh water access and well lit and clean bathrooms to name a few! Everywhere I look, people are huddled together by campfires and boom boxes outside green and grey tents. The smoke from the many fires linger like an intense incense in a closed room, far away I hear drums. I suddenly feel the energy that everyone has emitted when they have spoken about Bushfire. The mystery. The community. The creativity. It’s all there, in the all encompassing smoke. Next year, I am definitely camping!

In the middle of the camp site, there are several seating arrangements around different fires. There is a bar and a food place and some of the groups gathered are playing music on different loudspeakers. Instead of a roof, there are carnival lights hung up like a tivoli tent, making it a beacon of light and direction at the pretty dim campsite. I look around, I could probably find my way here on my own tomorrow night. I have heard that the campsite afterparties Sunday night, when the last performance has ended, are crazy and I don’t plan to miss out!

“So, that boyfriend of yours… is it serious?” Mikes’ question pulls me away from the schemes of tomorrow. I sigh. We have already talked about this. Twice. Do I have a boyfriend? Yes. No. The real answer is irrelevant. I have found that the easiest answer to this question, when out partying, is yes. That evidently doesn’t stop it from being a topic of interest though. This time, I answer by proclaiming my deepest love and gratitude to having female friends. I ask him, why is friendship not enough? It’s not like he knows me anyways, we met a few hours ago. Why is friendship not the ultimate goal?

The situation annoys me, why should I keep investing my energy into a conversation with somebody who apparently only sees the value in that if he gets to be physical with me. It touches on another subject close to my heart: security and female independence. I am here because the company of this man made it possible for me to safely explore a new area at night. The safety of my ‘protector’ is guaranteed through my friendship to another man. Ever since I started becoming independent, I am time and time again reminded that my safety and well-being exists at the mercy of the people I surround myself with. How limiting. And yet, when Mike puts me in a cab at four AM I am eternally grateful for his care.

If you want the experience in video format you should check out my tiktok!

MTN Bushfire Festival in Eswatini

julia.sarantes.andersson — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 09:45:32 +0000

The Global Entity

Part 1 of 3: MTN Bushfire Festival In Eswatini

00:00 / 15:13

Traveling to Eswatini: attempt one

Did you know that in a tiny country, called the Kingdom of Eswatini, lies one of Africas most popular music festivals? I attended the amazing MTN Bushfire festival in Eswatini and now I am ready to share the experience with you! I was introduced to Bushfire when I was in Cape Town, November 2022, lots of my friends wanted to go. They described it as a huge, international music festival with over 20 000 participants, for Africans, by Africans. Amazing, I thought. It will be the perfect opportunity to reunite with my friends from South Africa and experience my first, big, African music festival together!

Not feeling like I had the sufficient gear to camp in Eswatini during winter (May-September), I decided to stay at Legends Backpacker Lodge nearby the festival area. I’m very glad I did as winter here is surprisingly chilly at night. Plus my journey to Eswatini took an unexpected turn. My passport was confiscated by the border migration claiming that I didn’t have a proper visa. A whole eight hours I was held in dispense not knowing what was going to happen. Eventually, all the issues were resolved but by then the borders were closed and I had to spend the night in a house filled with male police officers. Not a situation I would wish on anyone, especially not a solo traveling woman.

Nothing bad happened. Or let me put it this way, nothing further traumatising happened that night. The officers were nice and respectful and tried to make me feel okay which was a stark contrast to how we, just a few hours earlier, had been deadlocked in an exhausting and, to me, terrifying power battle. Their efforts of kindness didn’t comfort much, my body and whole being reacted instinctively to the potentially violent situation. Nobody would have heard me scream. There was nobody there except for me and the police, that made me terrified. I see the irony of that statement but I’m sure most of you would have felt the same.

Exhausted from all the fear and stress accumulated during the day I eventually managed to fall asleep feeling anything but safe. When I woke up in the morning my hips were clenched together so tightly that I have to lie on my back for a few minutes, knees to my chest, just rocking side to side, in order for them to loosen up. I think I will have to type a what-not-to-do manual some day, retelling all of my many visa crises I’ve had these past months (read about it here).

Entering into Eswatini: attempt two

The kombi (a minibus, Eswatini’s public transport) that had taken me to the border, had left me there the night before when they confiscated my passport. In the morning, when I got all of my papers back, I managed to hitch a ride from the border to the nearest town. From there, it was only two hours till I reached my final destination, Ezulwini Valley. Eswatini’s voluptuous mountains and hills welcomed me as I sit in the back of a fully packed kombi.

A kind looking lady strikes up a conversation with me, in an instant I have latched on and dumped all of my past 18 traumatic hours over her. Her face shifts from disbelief to anger to a grimace of sympathy, relief and fear at the same time. Then, just as suddenly, her face lights up with joy, she takes my hand and proclaims “But you are good now.”

This summarises something that has been so poignant it has been written on my nose throughout this entire trip. To hear it yet again now, in the back of a warm kombi, next to a kind stranger, makes me laugh out loud. There is a, to me, very liberating ability amongst many who live here, to focus on their present blessings. It is true, I am good.

Nothing bad happened. I am safe, I am good… now. The kind lady and I laugh together as we make fun of toxic masculinity traits in security providing jobs. Laughing together does me good and I can feel the tension in my body moving a little. But the very real danger of the situation hits me once again and makes the laugh get stuck in my throat. I return to gazing out at the endless mountains eating the ever circling road. Today could have been a very different day for me. My stomach clenches as my thoughts trail off into what ifs’.

My next home: Legends Backpacker Lodge

The fog lies mysteriously around the dynamic landscape obscuring the rest of the greenery, creating an air of deep magic. The sun warms my stiff body through the tiny, dirty side windows and I can feel myself coming back to life. I have arrived! The Legends Backpacker Lodge lies amongst ancient trees in a valley opening up towards the mountainous Eswatini horizon.

Decorated with lots of quirky and creative decor, the backpacker has an outside and an inside common area with seating, wifi, a common kitchen and a bar – just how I like my backpackers! The dorms are fresh and roomy with thick blankets to keep the cool night air away. I see signs and info sheets about hiking trails and incredible nature experiences. I make a mental note that I have to come back here and experience it properly some day. The next 24 hours I spent mostly sleeping and eating trying to recover from the too dramatic journey here.

The day after I arrived, I greet and hug friends as they drop in from different locations on the continent. Phone calls and messages start coming in as friends get their local sim cards activated; the planning and organizing for tomorrows’ first festival day is in full rotation. As the sun lowers Ezulwini Valley into a purple haze I can feel the energy changing within – all of the surrounding collective is getting ready to receive 20 000 dancing souls. I’m ready. A bit shaken albeit, but ready nonetheless.

The first day of MTN Bushfire festival 2023

On Friday I wake up with all of the Gods and Divine energies on my side. I can feel it! I pack my party bag with all layers of clothing I might need through the day and night and spend a fair few minutes cursing my decision to not bring my neon eyelashes. Eventually I get going to the festival area, despite festival access passes not being released till four PM, I somehow get mine from a kind stranger who has also arrived three hours too early.

I sit down to wait in the shade next to a group who turns out to be a group of local dealers. They are excited as they expect business to be good this year. Real good. One of them curiously asks where I’m from and if this is my first time at Bushfire festival. When I say it is, he generously gives me the A-B-C of where the shortest toilet lines will be, how to catch a festival shuttle back and forth from the festival area, and what substances to avoid in Eswatini in general. I take the opportunity to ask the women in the group about the safety during the night. They answered that they always feel safe going everywhere at Bushfire alone, even the toilet at night, but that they wouldn’t accept a drink from just any stranger.

As one of the guys in the group lights up, about 50 Eswatini police officers walk by. The group start laughing as they see my frozen, shocked expression. Smoking is not legal in this country. “Chill man! THIS IS BUSHFIRE!” they yell as they continue laughing. One of them turns to me with a serious face and says “But only during Bush hey, otherwise you can get in trouble for smoking even a cigarette on the street.” People have started gathering outside the main entrance and the group decides it is time to split up and get to work.

With its first festival being held back in 2007, MTN Bushfire is today known as one of the best international music festivals in Africa and a mega hyped-must-experience. To say I am psyched to be here is an understatement. I decide to get some food before the stages open and find a delicious, authentic Ethiopian food place at the Bring Your Fire stage.

As I sit and shuffle the food into my system, friends from all over pop up. As we hug, catch up and decorate each other with glitter, I am overwhelmed with the community I feel. The people I was supposed to come here with had last minute changes resulting in me essentially traveling alone. But now, sitting here, surrounded by people that I met somewhere along my nine months on this continent, I feel held and part of. Everything is as it should.

As the sun sets and darkness wells over the festival arena, different lights, circus artists, drummers and fire artists start appearing everywhere. The festival area is gradually filling up with people and the energy is rising with anticipation. Right before the first music act is about to start, I end up losing my already way too drunk group of friends I was hanging out with. I stand under the star filled Eswatini sky and breathe, unsure of which stage I want to start at. A careful, soft voice behind me interrupts my thoughts.

“Sorry, excuse me…” she says, shifting her eyes between the ground and my face. “Sorry-I-just-always-wanted-to-ask-as-stranger-but-never-had-the…” Ask a stranger what, I wonder as the sound of her sentence trails off into the ground. Her face lights up as our conversation starts to flow naturally, starting from somewhere in the middle, not remembering to exchange even our names. She is a creative from Eswatini, a whole vibe, with the most intrinsic braiding I have ever seen.

A voice rings out over the whole festival area, a voice that vibrates from the ground up, penetrating the cores of everyone present. For a second that felt infinite, the whole festival paused and held its breath. I turn to my new found companion and exclaim in realisation “It’s Thobile! Thobile Makhoyane.”

With full comprehension, my new friend grabs our drinks in one hand and my hand in the other and together we rush towards the Main stage. We run through the crowds of beautiful, excited festival goers and get there just in time to see Thobile Makhoyane perform the first part of the opening act. I am yet to meet somebody that can command a crowd with merely her voice the way Thobile can. Her performance is divine and way too short. Luckily, she is performing again on Saturday in the Amphitheater so I will have a second chance to see her.

After Bushfire’s stages have all opened, my friend with the beautiful hair turns to me and asks if I want to meet the other creatives of Eswatini. I eagerly accept and we proceed to make our way to the Bring your Fire
stage as she explains how the stage is a interactive creative stage but also an advocacy space. Surrounding the stage, local and international NGOs and IGOs, activists and volunteers are gathered around tables telling the stories of their work.

Bushfire is and always has been driven by a desire to create social change and impact. Each year the festival supports different projects, this year it went to projects supporting children and empowering women. You can read more about that here. We arrive just as the performances have started rolling. The spoken word floors me. The ones I feel the most are the ones that mix english with what I assume is the local language seSwati.

I quietly notice how I am surrounded by the young queers of Eswatini. The conversations of who is performing, who wasn’t invited and the political implications of that are flowing. Who came with who is also a hot topic. I notice how I relax in a way I haven’t in months. Solidarity. Community. Siblingship. This is the first time I am in a queer context since I left Sweden in October 2022. I feel happy and safe, excited for being welcomed in. Shortly after the first performances are done I get a phone call from my South African friend Lerato. She and her friend have arrived and are ready to dance!

I must confess that I came to Bushfire more for the experience of it than for the specific artists and line-ups. If I’m going to be upfront I might as well also confess I have about zero knowledge about artists in general. Besides the idols I had as a ten year old, I don’t remember any names, titles or lyrics of the music I currently consume. So imagine my surprise when I, in the middle of the sea of people dancing in front of the Ballantine’s Firefly stage, get to hear my all time favorite song of 2022. I turn around and see the UK DJ Megatronic pumping the hit and my personal anthem all of last year: Doja.

My whole being explodes and I start dancing and singing. Maybe dancing and lyrically shouting out the last words of every sentence is a more accurate description… The rest of the crowd is not getting it, but I don’t care. I dance like there is no tomorrow, like every stomp will bring me closer to the beat of the earth and every jump has the potential to swing me up into a new, higher dimension. I always said this day would come. Through all the visa issues, isolation and general mishaps, I knew the day would come, where I would finally start dancing and never stop. I feel now, that day is here.

At around three AM I get a call from one of the friends who is also staying at the hostel. “Are you ready to go home?” We manage to negotiate an okay price with one of the many taxi drivers outside the festival area. In the taxi home I feel all of the impressions welling over me. How lucky am I?! I turn and look at my almost sleeping friend and happily exclaim “I can’t wait for tomorrow!” He almost opens his eyes to smirk at me “Me too hey. Me too.”

Navigating Gender Dynamics: Insights from a Solo Female Traveler in Southern Africa

julia.sarantes.andersson — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 06:08:17 +0000

The Global Entity

Navigating Gender Dynamics: Insights from a Solo Female Traveler in Southern Africa

00:00 / 12:48

Where are all the women within tourism?

Today’s blog post is long overdue, and yet, I ended up almost not writing it at all. It regards the theme of female security, a theme that has followed me regardless of whether I’m traveling or at home in Sweden. I hesitated for many months writing this, afraid to not get the many nuances across, to come off as a victim, or to perpetuate the already existing racist narratives and prejudices about the countries I travel. However, this is a defining part of my experience as a solo traveling female, not writing about it would also essentially be negating a central aspect of my life as a woman. For the longest time, I used to normalize a lot of what I now see are skewed power dynamics. Sharing my experience will perhaps help somebody else in their process.

Ever since I got into Mozambique at the beginning of last year I’ve been wondering, where are all the women? I was in a new country, wanting to meet people but whenever I went out, it felt like 99% of the people I met were men. Not only that it was mostly men who approached me, it felt like it was generally solely men out and about in Maputo’s night life. On the one hand, it is not uncommon that women are less present in public spaces at night. Security reasons, gender norms, economic limitations of who earns and spends the funds of the home… But in Mozambique, my impression was that the skewed gender division of space was applicable in most areas in society, not just the nightlife. The musicians and the guides, the space owners and the participants in different spaces were almost all male. Odd, considering that statistically there are more women in Mozambique than men. When I eventually got to Tofo it was no different, all men.

Experiencing the patriarchy as a solo traveling female

I have previously shared little bits and pieces about the security aspect of being a solo female traveler. Most recently I wrote a small piece about how the amount and type of male attention I got in Tofo was overwhelming. The underlying presence of alcohol and violence created an uncertainty which felt difficult to navigate as a solo traveler and as a woman.

Some hard, yet beautiful conversations were had with a few of the men and eventually we found our way of coexisting. What I did not see coming was how the mere fact that I, an unmarried woman traveling alone, would be perceived and received negatively simply because I was just that – a solo traveling female. In Tofo, it got to the extent that I actually ended up adapting my behavior and eventually changing my accommodation.

I was a solo traveling female, living on my own amongst a group of male musicians and tourism staff in Tofo. Living there, I always felt safe, respected and included. We went to dinners, cooked together, chilled during the days and partied during the nights. After my first week in Tofo, rumours about me being a whore got back to me. It hit me like a brick in the stomach to tell you the truth. Not solely because it is such a demeaning terminology used to put women ‘in their place’ but because the people telling these stories were people I saw every day.

Mostly though, it made me feel scared and small. Getting the reputation of a whore in a patriarchy, anywhere in the world, is definitely effective in making you feel small. I find it a scary place to be in when my reputation crashes and burns. It’s not just words, it translates into how people treat me, how safe I feel, how respected I get. I wish I could say something empowering on how to navigate these dynamics, but this is something I am still processing, strategies I’d prefer to be oblivious of.

In retrospect I am not too surprised at what transpired those weeks in Tofo. I’ve seen it and lived it time and time again growing up. When I lived in Nicaragua as a seven-year-old I was called into the principal’s office for playing football with the boys, it was not considered appropriate. I was 12 years old the first time I was called a whore, it was a male classmate in Sweden who wanted to put me in my place. When I was 15 years old, the girl in my class who rather hung out with the guys, quickly got turned into the main subject of everyone’s name calling and trash talking.

I’d love to say that it got better once we were older but that was never the case. It is the usual story; guys get crowned kings for how many girls they bed and girls learn how to balance the whore-Madonna complex where you both needed the men’s desire to be ‘valued’ but also need to watch out to not get the tramp stamp. Harsh, I know.

The duality of gendered dynamics when solo travelling

As a solo traveler, or as somebody doing life outside of their own country, dependency is what is the hardest – that you are so reliant on the people around you. I think our experiences are largely shaped by the people and norms that surround us and when I was in Mozambique, that experience largely consisted of men but not solely in the negative way described above. No. I can safely say that on a personal level it has been both eye opening and heartwarming.

Back home, my close friend group consists of 99% women but through the process of slow traveling Mozambique for eight months, my closest friends here consist of 99% men. Beautiful friendships with souls that I built relationships with probably simply and just because there were no other women in my proximity at the time. Reflecting on this makes me realise to what extent my own behavior is also saturated with gendered notions.

Without sounding too crass, another aspect of traveling as a solo female is that I use my perception of the gender dynamics to gain more access to places and times I otherwise wouldn’t feel safe or comfortable visiting. Through the inclusion and company of my male friends and acquaintances, I get access to spaces and social circles at times that I wouldn’t access on my own, like going out at night in a new place or walking into areas that aren’t tourist friendly.

On the other hand, it doesn’t come for free. The mere feeling alone of existing at the mercy of a stranger you met is a price. But what would happen if one of those male acquaintances who chaperone me around at night, what if he suddenly feels he doesn’t want to do it anymore? Or if he decides he wants something in exchange? Imagine getting ditched and stranded somewhere in the middle of the night in a strange city just because you don’t want to sleep with the guy. Nightmare.

These dynamics affect what and who I choose to write about on the blog. Slow traveling helps get a fuller picture of the people and enterprises. This is one of the reasons I often publish a post a few months after I’ve experienced something, both good as bad. I want this platform to be a safe space for all of us solo travelers, especially from a woman’s perspective.

It was a very cold shower to receive a message a few months ago from a perfect stranger, a woman I had never met before, warning me about one of the men I was making content for. My name had showed up in the credits of his video. At first, I didn’t want to believe it, he was not just a collaborator but a friend I relied on. As I started digging for more information online, more accusations came up. This guy was a scammer. A scammer specifically targeting young, tourist women. Disaster! In the end, he ended up scamming money from me as well. The finesse of a scammer is that I didn’t realise it till months afterwards.

How Women Impact my Travel Safety and Experience

The rumours that were spread about me in Tofo in some ways felt surreal, like something from a movie, but the consequences were very real. It changed how I perceived and navigated Tofo. The silver lining of that whole ordeal was that I got to move into a local woman’s house. We had met only a few weeks earlier when I was out and about partying in Tofo.

She was an entrepreneur, a single mom and a Mozambican. If I thought that I had to balance on a knife to navigate the Mozambican patriarchy, it was vastly different from the machete she had to walk on daily as a Mozambican woman. It opened my eyes to the double standards and differences between how foreign women are viewed and treated in comparison to the local women.

With her by my side I also started to see different ways to handle the patriarchy in action. She reminded me that I don’t owe anybody niceness. She asserted her space and her innate right to it like it was nobody’s business, letting the backtalk fuel her motivation to build a life according to her. She is one of the strongest women I know and a huge inspiration. As weird as it may sound, I am grateful to how everything played out in Tofo, even the nasty. It was hurtful, yes. But the experience somehow shook me out of the role I thought I had to play as a visitor from a rich, European country.

When I left Tofo, I went straight to Bilene, another sleepy seaside town in Mozambique, to meet my friend Inga. She is also a solo traveler from Sweden, sort of. At this point we had only known each other for three months tops but she had already become an integral part of my Mozambican experience. I poured my heart out to her, telling her all about the rumours, the beach boys and the scammer. We end up laughing at the whole situation, all my stumbles and the mess it all made.

It is nice to talk to somebody who doesn’t need me to explain the clashes that happens because I am foreign, that understands the culture and gender norms I grew up with. I feel seen and safe. It makes me wonder how the thing in Tofo would have played out if there were more women in the tourism sector. Not just as cleaners and cooks, but as guides, owners, bartenders, participants and party goers. How would it have transpired if more women were part of the public spaces and had a bigger voice?

What I do know is that for me, more women in public spaces makes me feel safe. That is usually how I judge when it is time for me to leave a party or a club when I’m out in new country. I leave when the local women start to leave.

When I’m back in Maputo there is a big concert in Mafalala, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of town. Inga and I want to dance but the crowd mostly consists of young teenagers pushing through the crowds from one corner to the other. Each time we start dancing a ring of male spectators form around us, it makes me uncomfortable and uneasy.

Halfway through the night, we find ourselves in the middle of the crowd again. We are surrounded by what appears to be the grannies of the neighbourhood, they have formed a circle and together we dance our butts off. The women laugh, cheer and sing when I dance in the middle, from the corner of my eye I see how one of the grannies grabs a young man by the ear and pushes him out of our circle when he tries to dance with us. There is zero tolerance from the grannies, this is their space, and they have no time for the boys and men surrounding us. They are here to dance and dance we did.

I catch Inga’s eye across the sea of hijabs and shaking arms surrounding us. The joy I see in her eyes I know must mirror my own. Liberty. The freedom that comes from feeling safe and doing what you love. The memory gives me goose bumps. Women! I live for you!

Fear and Freedom: Reflections on Solo Travel as a Woman

julia.sarantes.andersson — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 22:06:10 +0000

The Global Entity

Fear and Freedom: Reflections on Solo Travel as a Woman

00:00 / 16:58

The best of traveling on my own

Traveling solo as a woman is the absolute best decision I have made for myself. I did my first solo trip when I had just turned 21 years old, after returning home from an internship in South Africa. I believe, solo traveling has the capacity to make or break you. Personally, it has forced me to be comfortable in the unknown as well making me more confident and assertive in what I believe in and want. Solo traveling as a woman has disproved and busted so many of my fears, prejudices and internalised definitions about myself and the world that doesn’t actually serve me.

Traveling on my own has in many ways set me free in how I identify and relate to myself. But it has also shown me how very gendered the world is. Solo traveling as a woman can in many ways be exhausting. For example, I have become hyper vigilant whenever interacting with authority like the local police or migration when traveling alone.

Too many times, the fear of rape has crossed my mind when I get stoped in the middle of the night by an officer who first takes my passport and then asks for my number in the same sentence. The abuse of power in this situation is completely ignored by the officer who sees no problem in asking for a bribe, a date and accusing me of a crime while cheekily asking for a kiss and if I have a local boyfriend yet.

More solo travel dilemmas: woman edition

While traveling in Mozambique, my time in Tofo was probably where I experienced the most limiting gender dynamics. So much so that I almost called this blog post ‘Two months in paradise: a hostile experience’. Here it wasn’t the police harassing me but the local boys and young men. April is during Tofo’s low tourist season and perhaps that can help explain the intensity and amount of unsolicited, quiet aggressive pursuits of attention from what is locally known as “Beach boys”.

The amount of attention, the demand to give, respond, finance, never ended in Tofo. It got exhausting to go out in the evenings because of the amount of No’s I had to say. And how firm I had to be. It’s not just that it takes a lot of energy to navigate, or that I am always having to police my impulse to not be rude, even when I should. It is the fact that underneath the gendering roles we play in the mundane, is the power dynamic of possible violence.

The term Beach boys is, often derogatorily, used to describe the group of young, local men who work or associate themselves with tourists. They either meet the tourists’ as instructors, guides or bartenders. Or they hang around on the beach trying to get lucky. Common trait is that they use their personal relationships with tourists for economic gain. Some people call it prostitution. Others call it capitalism and life.

However you may define it, I hated it. It made me uncomfortable as there was nowhere I could exist there without being expected to fill that role. It also made me see how deeply socially exploitative the tourism mechanisms can be. Had Tofo not been turned into the tourist destination it is today, who knows how these men and boys would choose to navigate the world.

Story time: solo travel safety in Tofo

One night I got a call from another female traveler. We had met a few weeks earlier in Maputo and had decided to meet up when we were both in Tofo. “Julia I am so sorry to call you at this hour I just don’t know what to do!”

The panic in her voice was evident. She tells me how she had wanted to ensure another tourist woman got home safe. The woman was way too drunk to go home alone when suddenly, the drunk girl’s supposed boyfriend shows up and wants to take her with him. My friend tells him no. She only knows that they’ve gone out on a few dates before but she doesn’t really know how close they actually are. The drunk girl in question is practically passed out at this point and can’t argue her case. The supposed boyfriend gets angry.

My friend continues. “I couldn’t do it Julia. She is so drunk and he is scary. But he got so mad when I said I was taking her home. He said I should to watch myself here, that he knows eeeeveryone here…” The fear is present. I swear under my breath. Just a few hours earlier we had been dancing and drinking under the stars together and now she was filled with fear. She continued telling me how he had trailed behind them until the girlfriend’s hotel and how she now didn’t dare to walk back to her own hotel across town. There are no official taxis here and she just didn’t know what to do.

Even though it was late, I rushed to the owner of my hostel and explained the situation. She allowed me to borrow the hostel truck and one of the staff members to go look for my friend. After 15 minutes of driving out into the dark outskirts of Tofo, we find my friend carefully looking out from a gate. She is so grateful and relieved and cannot stop thanking me.

We ride back to her hotel on the backside of the truck looking up at the stars. I take her hand, squeezing it tightly as she continues to apologise profusely for interrupting my night. Sitting safe on the truck she starts feeling like she turned something silly out of nothing. “Always call.” I look her dead in the eyes and say it again. “Don’t feel stupid. You’d feel really stupid if you were dead. Always call.”

She nods, a bit baffled by my serious answer. But that is how I felt. After dropping her off at her hotel and waving goodnight it hits me, who would I call if I needed to? In South Africa I have a solid network of women who love me and who would drive out in the middle of nowhere if I needed it. Here, I am very much alone.

Looking over at the driver, I am reminded again that I, in many ways, exist at the mercy of others. Especially when I travel. Coming from a hyper individual society, this insight is therapeutic on many levels but as a woman, it is terrifying at worst and limiting at least.

My travel nightmare: Navigating Visa Issues Alone in Africa

julia.sarantes.andersson — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 13:21:53 +0000

The Global Entity

My travel nightmare: Navigating Visa Issues Alone in Africa

00:00 / 7:29

Rising from the Ashes: Navigating 10 Weeks of Visa Limbo

Traveling can easily become a nightmare, especially when visa issues arise and you are all alone in a new country. When I reached my sixth month of traveling I was ready to throw in the towel and go back home. Every kind of disaster imaginable had happened during these first months. Not counting how it all started, I had been so ill and physically weakened, I had lost my passport and visa in a country where I was completely unknown, spent ten weeks at a hostel not being able to do anything but worry and question all of my life decisions that had led me here. Furthermore, I had lost a ton of money and all of my confidence. What a f*cking mess.

My ten week without a passport, pretty much ment isolation and passiveness, being stuck inside a hostel. While I was there, somebody spiritual reminded me that I chose to be here in this situation. The instant I heard it, I wanted to tell that person to take their philosophy and shove it up somewhere… I had not left my whole life behind only to lie down and do nothing, or had I? I could feel my two sides struggling within, the one who told me to rest and trust the process versus the one who got anxiety from the non-existent plan and all the very much existing problems.

Those ten weeks were the hardest. Sitting in the unknown. Not knowing when or if it would be resolved. Not being able to judge the severity of the situation I was in. No joke, that period almost crushed me. Any and every bad habit or toxic coping mechanism that I have ever embodied at some point in my life resurfaced all at once. I will spare you the desperation expressed on my diary pages, let’s just say that if I ever wanted to try some shadow work, the timing was God given.

When something finally did happen to resolve my situation it was me, I was the thing that happened. I woke up one day, powered by a wholly wrath that I’d never felt before, and told everyone that we are fixing this today. Within 12 hours I had my passport back in my hands and after 24 hours I was back in Mozambique waiting for the bus to take me to Tofo. I cried with relief.

It was empowering to know I was the one who saved me, but I also felt silly for letting it take me so long. Maybe that was the lesson of my 10 week isolation. That I am the power, the enabler, the destroyer, the creator of everything that exists in my reality, the good just as the bad. Now, in the publishing moment, that I have passed my 1 year mark traveling I can see how important those 10 weeks of being in the unknown were, but I did beg the Gods to be done with the hard lessons for a while.

Existential crisis in Paradise

Alas, the Gods did not listen, the hard lessons continued. I had been invited to Tofo, a sea side village in the middle of the Mozambican coast, to cover a retreat. A sponsor of the retreat had heard of my blog, seen my work and wanted me to “do something” there. Very diffuse but I was eager and willing. Payment, who needs that when there is an opportunity at hand! That should have been my warning signal to myself.

When I get to the retreat it turns out the organisers have not been informed and does not want me there. Oh my goodness. To say that I died a little bit on the inside is an understatement. The humiliation of it all! To have sat 12 hours in a sweaty minibus in order to go work for free in a context where I’m not even wanted. Yohh. I felt like the biggest failure on the planet.

I was proper pissed at the sponsor who had invited me but mostly I was angry with myself. Dreams are such a vulnerable space to be in and I had not done my due diligence to ensure the soft reception of them once I put them into the world. It was a horrible lesson to learn but I decided to see it as such, otherwise the missed opportunity would have crushed me. Always get the approval of the main organizer, always get everything on paper, don’t work for free.

Soulful lessons from learning to live through my heart

As awful as the experience was, it triggered a lot of things that I am now grateful for. It made me realise that I had something I wanted to offer the world. From having no clue of what I wanted to do in life, to feeling a genuine joy and curiosity to try my own ideas out. To take up space for real. To be seen and heard.

It also made me remember that I LOVE a good day party. And that shame dies when you dare to speak and address whatever it is to an empathetic listener. I decided then and there to give myself grace. What I mean by that is that I started to accept that I have no control over the lessons life has in store for me or how messy it is going to be… but I can make every effort to give myself grace, chose what brings me joy and bring out the beauty in the small, everyday steps.

It can sound silly and fluffy but I am telling you, it has made all of the difference. I started taking soft walks in the morning thinking that moving in the physical might eventually catalyze the energetic movement in my life that I was envisioning. After my third week in Tofo my body started running. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the beach dogs that had kept me company every morning on my walks. They are called the Ambassadors of Tofo and are huge dogs that run around freely. Not all of them are kind so I would recommend you to be intuitive and attentive when you interact with them.

A Solo Female Traveler’s Safety Contradiction: Negotiating Independence

julia.sarantes.andersson — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 12:40:47 +0000

The Global Entity

A Solo Female Traveler’s Safety Contradiction: Negotiating Independence

00:00 / 12:32

Traveling as a young woman

When I was 21 years old, I did my first solo trip ever. I was flying to South Africa to participate in my friends wedding. It was so exciting! I drew up plans of everything I wanted to do on my own, who I was going to visit and booked everything well in advance. Since then, I have changed How I travel a lot. Now days, I try to leave as much space open for life to happen to me instead of me deciding it beforehand. But some things, I feel never change.

When traveling alone, I have often found myself feeling dependent on the men in my surroundings. Specifically, I feel dependent on their presence when I want to go out at night or explore a non-touristy area. It’s not that I am afraid of being attacked by a stranger, rather it’s a way to protect myself from unwanted advances and conversations that I get as somebody that is visibly a foreigner. As nice as it can be to get genuine compliments and attention, this is not the type of interactions I am referring to now.

Being a white, young woman traveling on my own makes me an easy ‘target’, not just for harmless curious interactions but for people who see mee as a walking money bag or sexual object to attain. That attention can sometimes feel constant and limiting when I travel. Especially when I am out at night in party environments and people are a bit intoxicated, lines can easily get blurry. Unless I am perceived to, so called, belong to another man. Many times people assume that I am together with one of my male friends and I do not correct them since it enables me to be more free from attention.

What is Solo Travel Security?

When I write about Travel Security, what I really mean is freedom of movement regardless of your gender, race, religion, etc. In other words, that I am free to move around, feeling safe, regardless of who I am or how I look. But since it is specifically I, Julia, writing these texts from my experience – freedom of movement is mostly restricted because of my gender. Not by anybody actively telling me not to go somewhere, but rather as a culmination of my internalized security strategies, fears and gender roles in society.

Creating security as a solo traveling woman, in comparison to doing it at home, is no different. The only difference is that when I am traveling, I am often in a completely new context where I don’t know the social codes, cues and norms. This is of course a huge difference and one that makes all of the difference. I just wanted to underscore and underscore again, that this is not a geographically specific text. Even though my examples are from my experiences in Mozambique and South Africa, I would say you missed the point if you think these problems, structures and norms aren’t global.

Creating security is something that I more and more come to believe can only be created together with others. No matter how much the patriarchy tries to teach women that they are responsible for their own safety, my personal experience is that if somebody has ill intent – it will not matter who you texted that you were going where or what shoes you were wearing to be able to run, you will still be in a shit situation that forces you to think and act outside of the security strategies you had prepared.

Despite knowing this, that security is created with others and cannot be created alone, as I travel alone, I still find myself creating strategies to keep myself more safe. Or, maybe I should say, to create the illusion of feeling safer. And all of these strategies rely on me, not on the group or the context, so I understand how contradictory the following text might feel. But that is also quite spot on for how I feel the arguments of female security are; contradictory. Damned if you don’t and damned if you do. So perhaps the following text is less on the security creating act as much as trying to describe the dilemmas women like me face when we navigate spaces on our own.

Travel Security Dilemma

There is a kind of skewed security that comes with “belonging” to a man. I say skewed security for many reasons, one of them being often-problematic dynamic that can be created between me and the man I am relying on. What happens if he confuses his “protective role” with actual flirting? What happens if he expects something in return for his “protection”?

Furthermore, every culture is different. A simple example is time. In Mozambique, I never know when something will actually happen because the said time is seldom the time that is applied. A less easy example to generalize is flirting, boundaries and communication. In some contexts, what I say will be taken at face value. In others, there are hidden expectations in just being you, that are easily missed when you are in a previously unknown context. Which can complicate things when you are out and about solo traveling, often experiencing things solely because you dared to say yes to be included into a new experience.

I don’t like the feeling of dependency, and yet, at the same time, I have not figured out how to be an independent, traveling woman. Meaning, in certain contexts, like at night, I would rather stay in at home, than explore a new city. I am grateful every time I meet a man that can provide me with the freedom that I am yet to understand how to create for myself. I guess, in a sense, I am my own prisoner and liberator. If I could change my perception of risk, or the perception that I have power over it, I would maybe walk the streets at night on my own. But that day has not arrived yet and therefore I have, more than once, found myself dancing after somebody elses tune instead of doing what I want.

Solo Travel Story Time

Naturally, sometimes, the strategy of ‘belonging’ to a man, backfires. Like the night I was at a concert with friends. The local guy friend, who had driven me and another friend around all night, asked to come inside to use the bathroom before he continued driving home after the event had ended. Nemas problemas. We had had a wonderful evening, danced together and met all of Maputo!

When he comes out of the bathroom, he announces that he is too intoxicated to drive home and asks if he can sleep over, saying that the hostel owner always lets him stay the night. Sure, I say, but think it’s rather odd how he suddenly is too intoxicated after not drinking one drop the whole evening. But I am not about to tell a friend to hit the road when they say they are intoxicated. Nor will I tell him to sleep in the car when I have plenty of room and he has driven us around all night. My dorm is empty except for me and since he does this ‘all the time’ I feel it’s rude to say no.

When I show him the extra beds in my dorm room, he protests and tells me that he has no intention of sleeping alone. I want to explain to him that I am not interested in him and here is where it gets tricky. Up until now, this is a person that I’ve been hanging out with almost every other day, it is a key person in the group of friends I have here in Maputo. The only group of friends I have here. If he takes my rejection the wrong way, I risk ending up completely isolated from the group.

There is a saying from Nicaragua that says it is better to be alone than in bad company. But we should not underestimate how hard that actually is to do. Humans are wired to equal social inclusion with survival, it is so human it is instinctual. The fear of exclusion is a powerful mechanism and I remember carefully weighing the consequences of my rejection in my head before speaking that night. My breath slows down and I try to take him in, evaluate how my words will be received.

When I finally do speak, his first response is to say sorry. But then looks up at me and starts saying all the reasons we should. We end up in an absurd back and forth and I feel the knot in my stomach tying itself tighter every time I have to reiterate my no. It makes me uncomfortable trying to balance being clear and at the same time not hurting his ego. I don’t know if he is embarrassed by my rejection or what, but after some back and forth, he lies down on one of the beds, turns his back towards me and stops responding.

Five minutes later I feel a flash of anger as I look at him sleeping peacefully. He doesn’t realise or care about the uncomfortable predicament he has put me in. He is no longer a friend crashing over at a friends place. I feel like he first ensured that he could sleep over and then ambushed me with his real intentions. Honestly, it feels manipulative and it pisses me off. I toss and turn, my anger going to worry and back again.

Listening to my own thoughts makes me angry too. Why should I be the one awake, worrying? This is my room. If I am not comfortable with him in it I should just throw him out, right?! But I won’t. I know I’d feel too guilty about throwing a supposed friend out on the street in the middle of the night. On the other hand, making me feel this uncomfortable is not giving me friendly vibes… why do I feel like I owe him to not be rude, to be nice, when he does not return the consideration?

I decide to go wake the night receptionist up and ask for another room to sleep in. I start feeling stupid over how naïve I had been. I should have seen the intentions of the guy and protected myself from it. As soon as I catch myself in that train of thought I stop myself. The habit of policing my own behavior in any kind of situation when blame is to be assigned is probably the patriarchy’s most successful control mechanisms. One of them at least. One that I am actively unlearning, a little bit every day.

It bothers me how dependent I am of men I meet. It bothers me that he just fell asleep, and I was left doing a risk analysis of the social consequences the situation may have for me. Que merda. What a shit show. He probably doesn’t even give the situation a second thought beyond the fact that I turned him down.

What happened here is not something that is unique for Mozambique in any way. The many safety contradictions that women have to navigate is, in my experience, something very global. Even at home in Sweden, when I am in my own known arena, I experience these types of dilemmas. The difference is, when I travel solo, I am completely without context and community of my own, leaving me more vulnerable to these situations.

When we see each other in the morning, it’s slightly awkward as we both pretend that everything is fine. I suppose that he is embarrassed over getting rejected. Personally, I am just relieved that he doesn’t seem angry or too butt hurt. From now on I’ll be taking the cab home, always. This is not independence.

Police, Parties and Goodbye’s: A Tribute to the Friends You Find Traveling

julia.sarantes.andersson — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 17:12:52 +0000

The Global Entity

Police, Parties and Goodbye’s: A Tribute to the Friends You Find Traveling

00:00 / 15:46

A love letter to my friends

The past few days have been a whirlwind of emotions. Mostly good ones. I’ve been continuing to hang out with my two Brazilians and their amazing group of Mozambican friends. They have shown me how to drink beer like a true Brazilian, colder than ice! Mostly they have shown me incredible kindness. Some people in this world have a certain something within them, an energy that makes everyone around them glow. Brenda and Igor have that. In their company I can feel myself being more myself, doing things I’ve always dreamt of but seldom dared. Doing it with joy and curiosity instead of crippling nerves about the outcome or how it will be perceived.

I believe there is some of that essence in the Mozambican social culture and norms too. An acceptance to the many human errors, a natural inclusion as the bottom line of every social interaction. Overall, I feel that there is space for playfulness and imperfections here, which makes the social settings a lot less stiff and awkward than what I am used to in Sweden. Obviously, I’ve only been here a month so these things should be taken as observations and reflections of the context and experiences I’m having right now, rather than generalisations. But I’m not going to lie either, with very few exceptions, this has been my impression of Maputo ever since I started socialising with people again. Which was what, two weeks ago? It feels a lot longer, time is strange like that.

The goodbye party

Brenda and Igor’s time is running out here in Mozambique and last weekend everyone gathered for a huge goodbye party. We were supposed to leave Maputo in the morning to go together to a friend’s house in the neighbouring city Matola. At four thirty in the afternoon everyone started showing up… and nobody thought that was weird! I wasn’t stressed about it but that’s only because it wasn’t my event. This would absolutely have driven me mad otherwise, like the true Swede I am.

When we are finally on our way in two full mini buses, we only drive about ten minutes before we stop. We are apparently first making a quick stop at Kwetu, a bar hosting a daytime event. As we enjoy the drinks and the music, more of our friends arrive. After an hour or so we are all gathered and start driving again. The next stop is at the outskirts of Matola at a small house. The paint on the walls is peeling and inside the house there are more boxes of alcohol and beer than I have ever seen in such a tiny space. We buy what we need and get going again, the music is loud in the xiapa (minibus) and the energy is excited.

We arrive just as the sun starts setting. It is a beautiful space with a pool and even more people, the party has already started! We dance and drink and laugh. It’s a beautiful, hot night and DJ Jambalão is playing like his life depended on it. When the first Brazilian funk song starts playing, the dance floor becomes fire! We realize eventually that nobody has made a plan for food and at this point the beer is finishing as well. The host of the house gracefully takes it upon themselves to remedy the situation and leaves in a car.

But where do you find enough food, at a reasonable price, for fifty happy, drunk people, in the middle of the night in Matola? When the host does get back it is well after midnight and everyone is about ready to pack up and leave. He gets met with cheers as the delicious chicken and fries get unpacked on the tables. A few musicians entertain us with their improvisation and eventually we are all packed into the minibus to go home.

First encounter with the Maputo Police

The ride back to Maputo takes a lot longer than when we were going to the party. Due to the late hour, the driver is driving everyone home to their doors. In order to avoid police and road patrols, he goes out of his way to drive on smaller, safer roads. Not because we were doing something wrong but because the Mozambican police have a notorious reputation for its corruption and extortion. That, in combination with the fact that the majority of us were either western foreigners or Rastas, two of the police’s favorite groups to target, made us extra careful.

At the time, I was blissfully unaware of these aspects of Mozambican society. Instead, I was sitting in the back trying to not get annoyed that everything was taking so long. When we finally arrive in Maputo it is almost three AM. Another discussion about which way to choose erupts in the bus and causes another long wait. Somebody mentions that the hostel is only a few blocks away and before I know it, the group of us who are staying there are standing on the curb of the road. The wind is a bit chilly but after ninety minutes in that bus I am relieved to be out in the fresh air. We shout goodnight to the people left in the bus and start our walk. I am hungry again and start planning the massive breakfast I intend to eat in a few hours.

I don’t get far in my thoughts before a police truck turns its lights on and speeds up only to stop right next to us. Four police officers get off, everyone is armed and two of them have huge rifles across the chest (I’m no weapon expert, it might be called something else completely). They ask where we are coming from. They want to see our ID’s and of course I have forgotten mine at home. In Mozambique, as a foreigner, you must be able to show your passport and visa at all times when asked by the police.

I try to explain to one of them that I have it at home, just a few hundred meters away. The police immediately cuts me off, almost like I have offended him by trying to speak to him. The situation feels tense and I let my friends take the lead. The Portuguese spoken is way too fast for me to be able to understand and I keep on thanking my lucky stars I am not alone right now. Just as it feels like they are about to let us go, one of the older ones starts pointing at an empty cigarette package and yelling angrily. It is the same brand as one of my friends smokes.

That is all it takes. Inside the cigarette package is something they claim is a finished joint, very illegal in Mozambique, at least on paper. It’s not ours and my friends start arguing with them. I don’t understand much but when one of the police officers takes my arm to load me onto the truck I get ice cold inside. I figure that since I am the one without a passport, they are pinning it on me. Four armed men with the authority of the law, want to drive me away, alone, in the middle of the night in a country where I know neither the language nor my rights. To say that I am terrified is an understatement.

I try to ask them where they will take me, what station. Bad choice. My English is perceived as arrogance… or something else very insulting. Either way, I feel like I have committed a crime. Brenda, my wise, brave Brenda, intervenes on my behalf and with a honey sweet voice and submissive, apologetic body language explains that I am new in the country and don’t know any better. It seems to calm him down somewhat. The oldest one, the one who seems to be the boss over the group of armed men, decides that everyone is guilty by association and proceeds to load us onto the truck. Guilty of what is unclear at this point.

I quickly follow after Brenda onto the truck before anyone can tell me to sit on the other side with my back to her. I look at her to read her face, I feel so ashamed for the situation that I feel I have caused. Instead of fear or irritation, she looks at me with steady eyes, her whole being is transmitting calm and reassurance, yet, careful to not move even one muscle of her face. She didn’t want the police to see what she was communicating. Everything was going to be fine.

What proceeded next was a forty minute drive through the empty streets of a sleeping Maputo, stopping in small, dark alleys and being scolded by the oldest man. The two younger officers, with their arms across the chest, kept walking around to our side, wanting Brenda’s attention, trying to flirt. The disgusting power dynamic of this in itself, doesn’t need to be pointed out. I have no idea of how common that is here but men with license of violence, in a corrupt society, hitting on you while not allowing you to leave – is not only disgusting but scary.

At the same time, it also makes this whole thing seem more performative, the accusations, the car ride, the stern talks. Eventually, after a lot of scolding from their part and a lot of what I can only describe as butt licking, on our part, they let us go. Properly shaken up, we make our way back to the hostel. We hug each other before we finally get to sleep. Despite the exhaustion it takes me hours to fall asleep.

The next day, in the early afternoon, we are all awake and gathered in the outside living room area in the hostel. All exhausted from the events earlier that morning. Brenda and Igor share with me in detail their previous experiences with the Mozambican police. They make sure I know that I didn’t cause this but was rather a victim of systematic corruption and how it looks on the individual level. I still can’t let go of the guilt I feel. The energy is heavy as we sit there and discuss the events of the night.

Mozambique, somebody says and in resignation sighs deeply. There is a moment of silence and all of our eyes eventually land on a no-smoking sign. The irony, as there is always somebody smoking here, is too much. Truly nothing is straightforward in this country, everything is context based. We start laughing, the kind of laughter that comes from the stomach, the kind that releases stress and anxiety. It is what we needed to let go of the heavy energy we were all carrying from the night’s events.

The journey of becoming: connections and goodbyes

The last days before Igor and Brenda leave for Brazil, are spent together. We go to markets, hang by the beach and go out, making the most out of Maputo’s nightlife. I am sad to see them leave. Their last night in Mozambique we spend together at the beautiful Prahna restaurant. Brenda and Igor are leaving the very next day and the feelings of everything that comes with moving away from somewhere, are very present. They have spent a year here, built a life here. I am well familiar with the sensation and I feel for them. It is not an easy process to go through. For the first time since we started going out together, nobody is dancing. We sit and talk quietly about everything that has been and what is to come.

When we come back to the hostel nobody is ready to say goodnight. Luckily, Lino, the bartender/receptionist, is still awake and holds us company while we drink another beer and talk about life. The absolute siblingship I feel to these people is beautiful. I am so lucky! For most of my life I have walked around feeling like an alien, never really belonging anywhere or being part of any community. But for the past couple of years, through the love and interactions with beautiful souls like Igor and Brenda, something is changing within me. I don’t feel that way anymore. It is like I am relearning the way I relate to myself and the world around me, perhaps best described as relating and experiencing the world from a place of abundance. It is a truly beautiful and expansive process.

As we sit there around the table, a song comes to mind, a song I haven’t heard in years. It is the song Historia de un amor, sung by Cesaria Evora. For those of you who haven’t heard it yet, it is full of melancholy and love. It encapsulates all of the emotions that are present in this moment, on our last night together. I feel I want to give it to them, sing it for them.

For a moment I get super nervous, the perfectionist within saying I haven’t sung in over four years and my insecurities are telling me who am I to take up space?! I look at them and I realise that it is all love here. If there is any time that I should break my four year break, it is now, surrounded by all of this love. They won’t mind me taking up the space, they will receive it as the gift I intended it to be. I take a deep breath and ask them if I can sing a song for them. I am met by a resounding and enthusiastic “SIM!” (yes in Portuguese).

And so I sing and I do it from the safe space of abundance. It is a beautiful moment and I realize and accept, for the first time in my life, that my voice is a gift. The moment affirms something that I know to be true now. The people that love you, will always want to see you shine your light, in whatever shape or form it may come.

On that note, I want to give a huge shout out to all of my friends back home and the friends I have been blessed to meet through my travels. It is a crazy mix of beautiful souls that have given and continue to give me so much. You are all a part of my process of becoming and I am eternally grateful to you, new as old. Your love heals.

Solo Travel Realities: Unwanted Advances and Uncomfortable Situations

julia.sarantes.andersson — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 20:51:18 +0000

The Global Entity

Solo Travel Realities: Unwanted Advances and Uncomfortable Situations

00:00 / 10:10

A sunny afternoon on a hot rooftop in Maputo

One afternoon I find myself on one of the rooftops at the hostel together with Brenda. The sun is intensely warm and everything feels sticky. It is the first time it is just us girls, up until this point we have mostly hung out in party settings in big groups. Our conversation starts a little tentatively but pretty soon I can feel how we connect.

With our words we travel through each others lives exchanging stories, questions and experiences of being a person but also a woman in this day and age. Mixed women, global, strong and often considered abnormal women. The siblingship I feel to this person is absolute. I decide to open up to her about what happened just before Igor and her included me into their sphere. Something that’s been weighing on my mind ever since.

A not-so-safe solo travel story

A week ago when I was out dancing I met a woman, she was super extroverted and we had loads to talk about. When the night was over she drove me and my friend home and we decided to meet up again soon. When the weekend arrived, she texted me asking if I wanted to come share a family day together with her kids and husband. Of course I accept! To be invited into a family setting did not only feel safe but like a privilege.

When the day arrives, the family come and pick me up at my hostel and we drive off to a neighbouring city of Maputo. The whole day is spent cooking dish after dish over the fire. Friends and family arrive throughout the day, I struggle with Portuguese the best way I can and manage to have a few conversations with the help of my Spanish. My host, however, seems to be busy and I don’t see much of her until the evening. She eventually approaches me and invites me up to the roof.

The house is still under construction and there is no light on the roof except for one dim streetlight in the far distance. As soon as we get there, she is all over me. Tongue down my throat, hands under my clothes type of thing. I am shook. Nowhere in our interactions had I understood that she was interested in me, or in women in general. I hear her husband laughing downstairs with their family and friends, just a few meters away from where we are. When my brain catches up with what is happening I take a step back.

She immediately starts talking about everything in her life. I look at her, not sure what to say except for sorry. When I don’t really respond to what she is actually saying, she changes her tone to a more seductive one, telling me how I am this and that. I feel fixated to the floor by her energy, a thousand thoughts running through my mind; where exactly am I? What is going on? Is she gay? What about her husband?? If I reject her now, will they still drive me home? Do the taxi apps I use in Maputo work here? Why do I feel so unsafe? Is it safe to be openly queer in Mozambique? How long would it take for the hostel to notice if I go missing? When she kisses me again I don’t resist, not sure how to best navigate the situation.

Luckily, her kids come rushing up to the roof and she pulls away. I take a few steps back and look at her, there is like a dark shadow right over her face making her look almost demonic. I look around, there is nothing around us that could possibly cast a shadow. I feel scared. What is going on? Under normal circumstances, husband and the awkward situation apart, I wouldn’t have denied a gorgeous woman a date but something feels really off.

I realise that the shadow over her face may be there just for me, to affirm the gut feeling I already have that something is wrong. I silently say a prayer, thanking my angels for warning me and asking them to get me out of this situation safely. The shadow disappears. I suggest we go downstairs to join the others again, reluctantly she says yes.

The evening continues and I try to play it light, socialising and talking to everyone except her. When we start packing up, she suggests where we should go next but I say that I have a date tonight and have to get home. Except for the music in the car, everyone is quiet. I sit in the back with the sleeping kids, constantly checking the map to make sure we are going in the right direction. When I get home I take a long shower trying to wrap my head around what I just lived through.

Scams, security and sisterhood

Talking about it now, in the warm sunlight, with Brenda by my side, I feel a little bit silly. Maybe I hadn’t been in any danger at all. Maybe I was just dealing with a deeply unhappy person who did not know how to read that I was uncomfortable… When I had told my mom about it the day after she immediately said she had a bad feeling from the start and that the thought of sex trafficking had come to mind. But she didn’t want to scare me. She reasoned that maybe it was just her own fear projecting.

Now, I come to find out that it is not all that uncommon that tourists get conned into having sex with someone they think want the same thing as them, only to find out in the morning that the person wants money because they are sex workers or have taken explicit pictures/videos for extortion. Yohh. I don’t really know what to make out of my encounter. I think that if she had been a man, I would have had an easier time reading it for what it was. I usually associate women with safety and sisterhood, and to think that she may have had ill intentions towards me is hard for me to accept.

It feels good to share this with someone who has been here longer, who speaks the language and knows the local context and norms. It feels really good to talk to Brenda specifically about it who has the sisterhood code down. She affirms what needs to be affirmed, questions my own internalised sexism and helps me put the blame where it should be.

I block the lady in question on all socials, just to be sure. I don’t want her seeing what I’m up to, where. Then I proceed to ask Brenda about what it’s been like living here as a foreign, young, beautiful woman. I don’t think we give these kind of conversations enough credit. A lot of the conversations women share between one another is judgingly called gossip. I don’t believe people understand that that’s how we women build security.

Safety Travel Tips for beginner Solo Travelers

Firstly, because of the theme of this weeks post, I want to restate how incredible solo traveling is! It is something that has grown me in more ways than one and as many sometimes unsafe situations I end up in cannot compare with all the life affirming encounters, divine, kind people and miracles that I have had the fortune to encounter on my solo journeys throughout the years.

Secondly, trust your gut AND trust that your gut feeling/intuition will grow and develop! But you need to give yourself time for that learning curve to exist. After I got home from this potentially dangerous situation, I could have been berating myself over ending up in it, guilting and shaming. Instead I held space for the fear to be felt and then I started going through the events of the day. I realised that my gut had been telling me to not go from early on, but I had not recognised it. At this realisation I tell my body thanks for warning me and I promise to listen better the next time it tries to tell me something.

Thirdly, be your own mom! What I mean by that is that my mom used to have a list of things that she needed to know when I was going somewhere without her, a very reasonable list I must add! It contained things like the address, how long we would be there, how we would get back and who the adults were. These are all things she needed to know to feel safe to let me go off on my own adventures, if I had kids I’m sure I will have a very similar list. So why would I not ensure that I the answers to those basic questions when I go off somewhere? The simple answer is I wanted to be a cool girl, the kind that just goes with the flow and isn’t such a control freak. But lesson learned (hopefully), ask the uncomfortable questions!!