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A World of Villages
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August 18, 2023
Six years on the hippie trail
Lots of people like to travel, me too. There are many ways you can do it, some more difficult than others. It helps to know something about the places you travel, but I know that many travelers arrive cold. If a sense of wonder satisfies your soul, then sure, don’t try to do anything except arrive wide-eyed. Brian Schwartz went to Oxford, he had a good job in New York as a law clerk for a Chief Judge in the US Court of Appeals, but he chucked it and began traveling around Asia and Africa. I can definitely identify with that. However, I will say frankly that I didn’t like the way he did it. He emphasizes here, even with the title, how he showed up in village after village, country after country and the villagers fed him, found him places to sleep etc. What? Was he entitled to that? He didn’t know much about the places, he didn’t know any foreign languages beyond French, and he didn’t seem to question his white-man entitlement. If he was down and out, somebody had to take care of him. Sometimes it took a long time to find that person, sometimes it was an American embassy or consulate. He naively entered countries that were undergoing wars, suffered severe repression (ex. Idi Amin’s Uganda) or were paranoid about foreigners (Guinea) and he wound up in jail. Sometimes he entered countries illegally, he flouted various rules and ended in police stations again. Over those six years, he didn’t seem to learn his lesson. He was lucky to stay alive. Though he had many adventures to write about and I definitely agree with him on the kind nature of a lot of the world’s inhabitants, I felt that this book emerged due to a considerable amount of exploitation on his side. The saving grace for me was that he worked in a famine relief program in northern Uganda for a couple of months—thereby repaying to a certain extent his debt to humanity.
I would just like to ask readers…..if an African guy were wandering about Europe or the USA, do you think he would receive the same treatment as Schwartz got? Of course, there are kind people everywhere as I said, but I doubt if he could pull off the same kind of travel.
That said, I felt that the book reflected the same pattern as his actual travel, that is, it’s very existential. “Here I am in Mali/Nepal/Afghanistan/Zaire. Whoa, man, hard to get a ride.” You can learn a bit about different countries back in the late 70s, but a lot more about "my life traveling". That can be interesting, so if such a subject appeals, go for it.
Lots of people like to travel, me too. There are many ways you can do it, some more difficult than others. It helps to know something about the places you travel, but I know that many travelers arrive cold. If a sense of wonder satisfies your soul, then sure, don’t try to do anything except arrive wide-eyed. Brian Schwartz went to Oxford, he had a good job in New York as a law clerk for a Chief Judge in the US Court of Appeals, but he chucked it and began traveling around Asia and Africa. I can definitely identify with that. However, I will say frankly that I didn’t like the way he did it. He emphasizes here, even with the title, how he showed up in village after village, country after country and the villagers fed him, found him places to sleep etc. What? Was he entitled to that? He didn’t know much about the places, he didn’t know any foreign languages beyond French, and he didn’t seem to question his white-man entitlement. If he was down and out, somebody had to take care of him. Sometimes it took a long time to find that person, sometimes it was an American embassy or consulate. He naively entered countries that were undergoing wars, suffered severe repression (ex. Idi Amin’s Uganda) or were paranoid about foreigners (Guinea) and he wound up in jail. Sometimes he entered countries illegally, he flouted various rules and ended in police stations again. Over those six years, he didn’t seem to learn his lesson. He was lucky to stay alive. Though he had many adventures to write about and I definitely agree with him on the kind nature of a lot of the world’s inhabitants, I felt that this book emerged due to a considerable amount of exploitation on his side. The saving grace for me was that he worked in a famine relief program in northern Uganda for a couple of months—thereby repaying to a certain extent his debt to humanity.
I would just like to ask readers…..if an African guy were wandering about Europe or the USA, do you think he would receive the same treatment as Schwartz got? Of course, there are kind people everywhere as I said, but I doubt if he could pull off the same kind of travel.
That said, I felt that the book reflected the same pattern as his actual travel, that is, it’s very existential. “Here I am in Mali/Nepal/Afghanistan/Zaire. Whoa, man, hard to get a ride.” You can learn a bit about different countries back in the late 70s, but a lot more about "my life traveling". That can be interesting, so if such a subject appeals, go for it.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review