The world doesn’t show this: a journey through cultural Africa – 01/17/2024 – Guia Negro

The African continent conquered systems programmer Rafael Sousa, 32 years old, who travels revealing what the world does not show: a cultural and rich Africa. The initial trip, which should have lasted six months, took twice as long, passed through 20 countries and left a lesson: “It’s not a place to be in a hurry, it’s a place to connect with people. The more you can experience, the better”, he notes.

Right at the beginning of the trip, Rafael created a YouTube channel that began to make money in the first six months. There, he shows the culture of native peoples, always with a view to the culture of the community. “This went viral and continues to attract people’s attention,” he describes.

Among the events that marked his travels, Rafael was a situation in Namibia in which Himba ethnic women live in very dry regions. “There, water is scarce, so people take a bath with aromatic smoke that comes out of a stone that fits in their hand and this leaves them smelling great, without needing water”, she reports.

Ethiopia, according to him, maintains local cultures and uses a different calendar, which marks the year 2016 and has days that begin with sunrise. “It’s very curious, because midnight is the time of sunrise and the years are about seven days shorter than the Western calendar, so they are still in 2016.”

Start of the journey

Born in São Paulo, Rafael lived in Itaquaquecetuba (SP) almost his entire life. He worked in the Information Technology area and had a stable job when he decided to live in Ireland for an exchange in 2015. In addition to English, the season resulted in short trips to countries on the European continent and a new lifestyle.

When he returned from his period abroad, Rafael was unable to adapt to São Paulo. “I got unaccustomed to busy cities,” he says. He started planning to live abroad. He got a job in Barcelona, ​​Spain, in 2019. “I looked for stability, but then I wanted to escape it and started planning a longer trip,” he recalls.

The initial idea was to spend three months in Africa, three months in Asia, three months in the Middle East and three months in Central America. Before starting the longer trip, he went to Kenya in 2021 and understood that the African continent would have many things to offer.

In February 2022, the trip began through South Africa, heading to Egypt, passing along the entire east coast of the continent. “I became the ‘Africa guy’ and started to think it made sense. I’m black and I identify a lot”, he says, who spent three months on the Asian continent, but had a different experience. “I liked it, but I didn’t identify with it.”

New route

After a break in Brazil, Rafael started a new journey in which he intends to visit 18 countries in eight months, passing through the entire west coast of the continent. The estimated cost of the trip is 13 thousand dollars, or around R$64 thousand, and is carried out with own resources. At the moment, the YouTuber is in Benin and will then head to Togo.

For him, the biggest difficulty on the African continent is transportation, since the journeys are long and sometimes challenging. Furthermore, from one city to another, it is often not possible to consult a map or GPS and you have to ask local people to understand how to get to a new destination.

Another challenge, according to the traveler, is adapting to food. “In the beginning you can go through a shock. I had diarrhea for 30 days and then I never had anything again”, he says. The best thing about the continent are the people, who according to Rafael Sousa, are the friendliest in the world. “This has to do with the fact that there aren’t many tourists. They want to give you the best possible. I don’t see that on other continents”, he assesses.

In this sense, he highlights Malawi in terms of hospitality, saying that it lives up to the country’s slogan as the “warm heart of Africa”. “You can’t sleep in the accommodation, because people call you all the time to stay at their house, for dinner”, he says, who stayed at the home of the taxi driver who had taken him to the accommodation. He also stayed at the house of the guide he took a tour with. “It’s an unusual welcome.”

The safety aspect, according to him, is much more stereotypical than actual risks. “We will always think it’s dangerous to see two men on a motorcycle without helmets on a dark street, but this is a common scene around here”, he describes.

Rafael also believes that white people are treated as “kings” on the continent, which reproduces structural racism in their treatment, while he is treated as a “brother”, which ends up being positive as he does not suffer from a tourist approach.

Today, most of the traveler’s income comes from YouTube and also from expeditions he organizes to the African continent, in addition to consulting on travel to the continent.

The YouTuber was on the list that Guia Negro makes annually about black travelers to follow in 2023, but he never had a media outlet write his story. He believes this has nothing to do with his color, but because of the little marketing he does. I contribute to his vision by stating that the fact of showing positive facts from a little explored continent, instead of the ills, can also yield less of a “hook” in traditional journalism.

When I ask what the world doesn’t show about the African continent, Rafael Souza responds enthusiastically: “It doesn’t show people, happiness. The continent’s wealth is not related to goods, but to culture, love, happiness. This makes the African continent the richest in the world.”