The day before yesterday I woke up in Antibes and I had breakfast in a sunny park. I thought that maybe now I can slow down a little, my goal had been “south” and now I was “south”. South of France counts as “south”, right? I thought that maybe I could continue walking, I googled the distance to Barcelona, I thought that it would be like doing the Caminho of Santiago, maybe, that I have all the time in the world, that my muscles would become accustomed with the weight of my backpack in time, my mind would fall into pace with the steps.

But something in me was still itchy, not quite happy about it, still wanting to get out of France, cross Spain. Still dreaming of Africa, still little spasms inside my skin whispering in popcorn-chorus:

“South, south, south…!”

So I check google maps in satellite view instead and locate a service point, a gas station that I know will be good: by the highway in my direction, trucks parked in a neat row even on the photo from above. It’s a forty minute walk. On my way I chuck my broken shoes in the trash. I have tried fixing them but the glue doesn’t stick, the soles flap like duck beaks and I proceed with the shoes I had from before, leather, pretty, not made for hikes really.

The road in Antibes winds like the spine of a snake, the sand on the sides is bright orange, the cars are many. I reach the gas station. I decide not to put too much effort, maybe spend an hour, tops. If I don’t get a hitch I’ll chill or walk some kilometers today, it doesn’t matter. I’ll drift, I’ll slow down.

I ask a few drivers, two, they are not going my way but deeper into France. Doesn’t matter. A truck in the far corner starts its engine, good sign, probably just wrapping up his break and heading out for a good 4 hours. I approach quickly, on a whim, probably he will say no as he is on his way, but yeah, it doesn’t matter.

The window is open, I yell my hello up at it to overcome the sound of the engine. The usual dance: finding a common language, making my question so direct yet polite as possible. The driver peers down at me, an older man. He doesn’t smile. I ask him if he is going towards Marseilles, Montpellier, Spain. He says he is headed for Marseilles. Will you bring me? At this point I think I speak a Portugese-Spanish pidgin. He shrugs. Sure, you can come to Marseilles. But it’s only 160 km. I smile. For me that is a lot, I say. Can I come? I ask again to be sure, and to give him space to change his mind. With my hands I gesture around the truck, for the passenger seat. He says yes, and I walk over, open the door (an older model of MAN) and climb up the steps. I am used to it now. Together we work my big, bulky bag into place and depart.

So began my two-day trip with Hassan.

…

We really share no common language: Hassan speaks Arabic, French and Italian, and some words of Spanish. I understand a little, little French and speak a little Portuguese, and on the road I have picked up a the smallest amount of Spanish as it is similar to Portuguese. In the beginning, talking seems hopeless.

Still. We drive, and on the road all we have is time. Our curiosity to get to know each other is bigger than our lack of words. Slowly, we find ways. Try out words from different languages, discard them, wave and point with our hands (mostly me), take our time. What really saves us, I think, is that Hassan is fluent in Italian and so can understand my beginner’s Portuguese.

It is only later I learn that I have entered a truck registered in and headed for Morocco. When I asked for the ride I didn’t see the plate. Normally it is the first thing I check. And it is also later that Hassan learns of my dream of traveling through Africa, ending up back in Mozambique. He takes his break around 14, after his first 4 hours. I get ready to leave as we park thinking that this is where we part, but he stops me and instead offers me to share his meal. On the sunny parking lot he makes me sweet Moroccan tea and gives me half of his bread, traditional bread. I eat, smile and move around. He offers me to come along further and I happily accept.

…

It is amazing how language and communication are born. During these two days I learn about Hassans life, his family, his religion. He learns about me, my family, my journey, my time in Mozambique. We speak with great effort but relentlessly, only occasionally using the translator app and I realize that even though the cognitive process makes me tired, I am loving every second of giving birth to our language. I think about sailors meeting in distant ports and imagine them having similar experiences of trying out words, laying them out like playing cards, slowly and thoroughly examining the other’s expression, looking for recollection of something familiar, with the lack thereof, clearing the table, trying another card, then another. With the few common words we have, I am humbled that I can learn about things from his culture, that he can give me advice on hitching in Morocco and tell me about his children. We listen to “Aïscha” by Cheb Khaled and then to a Moroccan playlist on Spotify. We look at the mountains together. Occasionally we make fun or he will tease me about some thing or another, usually my whimsical heart longing for Africa and especially that, to me, feels like a kind, fatherly gesture.

…

Hassan is fighting sleep. He has been driving a truck for over twenty years and this particular route – he always does this trip between Italy and Morocco – for the past seven years. In Rabat his family awaits him. On the way I can see him losing focus and occasionally the truck sways between the white lines. To keep himself focused he snaps his fingers, claps his hands, hums loudly or sings, opens and closes the windows, calls a friend. If the road is empty, he honks the horn. When we speak he snaps into an awake state, sharp and focused on our language game and after breaks with coffee he can maintain his focus. I ask him about it and he sighs. When I am on the break, I can’t sleep. It is when I drive that the sleep comes, he says.

I am never scared, but I worry. In my mind I pray that he will always keep winning against sleep even after I leave the truck, that he will always keep on returning to his family.

…

I pass the time admiring the color changes in the landscapes, silently cheering as we pass mile upon mile and the dots and lines I’ve seen on the map as distant soon lie behind us: Marseilles, the border, Barcelona, Murcia. I learn that we’re heading for the port in Algeciras. I learn that it is next to Gibraltar and the famous song happily haunts my mind. The days are long and we arrive at the gas stations late; Hassan knows all of them along this road and I feel at home in them as well by now, casually strolling in with my toilet bag to brush my teeth. The air smells different every time I open the door as we fall further and further down on the map: south, south south.

…

I live in the exhiliration. I don’t know if I am doing this, the moving, the hitching, for the kick of it. Probably I am doing it for the kick of it in ways I have not learned to see yet. Somehow, somewhy, staying in France or Spain or Europe seems unbearable to me. I have felt pulled, called, and now that I am moving and responding, in every fiber of me, I feel right. I don’t know why I have these ideas of what is interesting and what isn’t.

I imagine that Morocco is a place where I can stay for bit, at least for a week, look around. There I can land a little, take things in. Will it be difficult enough for me to feel motivated to stay and become with the place and the people? To actually learn something? Is it different enough for everything in me to be questioned and turned around and changed again? Maybe, maybe this is the kick that I’m looking for. Maybe I want to be moving because I like to be empty, because I like the emptiness that arises when I am in a context where I don’t know the language, the emptiness of walking straight into a cognitive wall where I can see that something is missing and has to be co-created and I can for the life of me not yet imagine what. Only that it is outside of everything I have ever known up until this point. Branches I do not yet know the shape of grow out of me, branches that maybe were there all along but that now for the first time reveal their contours to me and I start filling in the spaces. But I cannot fill these spaces alone. Maybe I just like it when the learning feels dramatic and excessive and forceful, maybe this is how I create the circumstances which make it impossible for me to come home and re-be-come somebody I have already been and live in the spaces I have already lived. Or maybe that is the only thing I will long for after I’ve had enough of this.

…

I wonder who I will become. Yesterday morning I was thinking of legging it from southern France. Now we are here, a few hours drive from the port and the ferry to Morocco. The moon is a perfect disc and the loudest cricket I have ever heard is singing to it. And I am heading south, south, south.

…

(This story told in pictures.)