For instance, on a recent trip to Bahrain, a group of drunk Saudis were walking in a group on an intersecting alley. I waited for them to pass rather than allowing them to walk behind me as I planned on walking in the same direction.
Then there are moments where no level of awareness will save you. So, practice your smile before hand. Also, try to dress and behave as if you fit the circumstance, leave your jewelery in the safe, and don’t get too drunk in public. I can’t recall the total number of drunk tourists I’ve seen become victims of pickpockets in Prague, but you might be surprised.
When you feel the hair raise on the back of your neck, get out. It might already be too late.
]]>That’s obviously ridiculous.
Not to mention the fact that Africa is huge and has a wide range of infrastructure and history – I defy anyone to summarize a continent with an acronym.
I was sharing a ride with a bunch of missionaries in JNB who were reacting to an extreme delay (which caused me to miss my flight) with jovial “TIA” comments which were a way of saying “wow, we’ve really gone past civilzation! This is part of our amazing foreign experience!”
In the RSA and most things run like clockwork, in some cases more efficiently than in North America and on par with Europe (hello waiting in a Canadian train station for six hours because VIA Rail can’t keep on schedule in the winter… or ever, or the time my Greyhound driver decided he would have an impromptu unscheduled hour long coffee break ten minutes before my final destination). Johannesburg is a 24 hour city where on time is late. So-called ‘African time’ is something that applies to Nigerian social invitations, not a broad transcontinental method of scheduling. It wasn’t TIA, the driver had screwed up!
Anyways. I like your revised meaning, if there has to be one: you know you’re in Africa when things could go any number of ways (good or bad) and people around you have a realistic perspective of the world as a complicated, sometimes unsanitary (!), place.
]]>I think a lot of what people proclaim as “dangerous” is a product of being oblivious of their surroundings – and that includes the people in those surroundings. If you go loudly talking in your accent/language, flashing around your wealth and calling attention to yourself, you are asking for problems. First, observe.
]]>You forgot the man-eating sharks, the gaboon vipers, being tear-gassed, getting a car stolen and being circled by locals during a moment of sudden isolation atop a camping trailer post-dusk. Now that’s a good time.
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]]>But danger is more than a physical menace, it is the way you view the world… ]]>
What are the odds of being in the most DISTANT place from any civilization and getting a gun aimed towards you by no other than a group of completely harmless tourists! I’m sure had it been the other way round, they would not have batted an eyelid. Can you naaaat do that!? Story told…number 3482 times by Kollin Funch.
]]>However, I loved your article. I am currently organizing a trip to Haiti for some fellow students here at the University of Iowa and I’m going to email this article to all of them.
Thanks.
Jared