I feel finally like a real stray animal, just like my name. Not just straying with my soul, but my whole body and mind. I never know where I will sleep at night, nor how long I will be on the road. Just that I am going home.

I try to lean into it.

This project of hitchhiking is only partly about saving money. To be honest I could very well afford to take whatever necessary trains or buses to go from Lisbon to Tallinn, which currently is my goal. I refuse to fly; flying to Africa already weighs on my concience as we face our climate crisis.

This project is instead about practicing falling into people. It’s a practice of dependence, it’s a practice of courage, a practice of patience and humility. I am trying to grow.

I don’t believe in this current trend of individualism that the Western culture is insisting on. I get the point and I see how we got here, but I don’t believe it’s natural for us. I don’t believe it’s healthy.

While staying in Mozambique I witnessed a myriad of ways of people depending on each other, in ways that back home would be seen as incomprehensible or even bad; co-dependency is something we frown upon. I myself was extremely dependant on others, especially when I first arrived. I couldn’t go to the market by myself, nor take the chapa, as I didn’t know the language or the place, and I lacked the courage to try before I felt ready. If I took a dance class that ended late at night, a friend would make sure to meet up and take me home so I wouldn’t have to bike or take the bus alone. It was hard for me to receive this help, but I accepted it. And gradually I fell into the ways of relating. I depended on others until I learned the ways to navigate – the city, the language, the culture – until one day I could find my way to the market, buy all the groceries needed and cook my first meal for my host. This happened about one month after I had arrived.

And I started enjoying it, part of it at least. When I moved to live with my Mozambican family, depending on them was part of what made me feel like I belonged and I enjoyed all I was given. Just as I enjoyed giving back; carrying my family with me through my every day life, thinking about what they would like as I went to the market or planned for my weekend, braiding myself into their lives and their lives into mine. It is a way of loving.

And so, this is what I want to bring, or learn, or elaborate on as I find myself back on my continent: falling into people. I want to be dependant on other people’s kindness in order to get back home. I want to have the courage to ask, and I want to be able to receive without shame or guilt whenever this kindness is offered. I want to dip my toes into this unconditional love that I believe unites all of us underneath all our differences.

I keep reminding myself to be myself and that it is enough for people to want to offer me rides, food, a place to sleep or just a kind word, a joke or a smile. Just as I want to give all of this back into the world, I have to be able to receive it.

In this way I learn to meet people with kindness and generosity. Whoever I meet, I can meet with a smile first, and foremost: “I am happy to see you.”

And I don’t know how, but I do believe that this project of mine will succeed. If there is one weirdo out there thinking that she wants to travel through Europe for free, as a guest in people’s lives, getting their time and help and kindness for nothing in return, except for just excisting… If there is just ONE weirdo believing that, surely there has to be more weirdos like this out there, because this one weirdo is in no way unique. I just have to ask, in order to find the others. Wave with my existence like a little flag, not repress whatever is my intention and wish, and others will come.

And in this belief, this stray finds a home.

…

(This story told in pictures.)