Link: a passage to Africa
Are you doing anything Easter 2000? Fancy hitching to Morocco for charity? That's what the Link Africa advert in the Oxford Student said, and why not, I thought... Most people reacted with "you've got to be joking" and as for the parents - "you've GOT to be joking." But, thinking it would be an adventure, and almost convinced, along with the 300 odd other hitchers from universities around the country, I raised my £250, bought my Arabic phrase book and decided it had to better than sitting around at home revising for collections.
As we sat on the bus driving through the outskirts of Oxford, though, I began to wonder if perhaps those sensible people were right. Then, suddenly, we were on the A345 outside Abingdon, having scrambled unceremoniously over a hedge, thumbs outstretched and grinning but really wondering who in their right minds would pick up 3 scruffy-looking students carrying a sign that read rather hopefully, "Morocco via Portsmouth."
Africa had never seemed so far away. Neither had my nice comfortable bed and my common sense. But even though I still can't really understand it, an army officer from Radley took pity on us, and before we knew it, we were off. We always knew it was for a good cause. The estimated £75,000 raised by the annual hitch goes to Link Africa, a charity that aims to improve the prospects of disadvantaged communities in South Africa, Ghana and Kenya by supporting and facilitating teacher and school development. The main focus has been South Africa, which still has the largest income gap of any country in the world. Link Africa's projects combine teacher training and whole school development
to address the harsh legacies of the apartheid era. For example, many of the schools are terribly under resourced, some even without running water. Link Africa's current education programme stands to affect the lives of over 260,000 children in more than 470 schools. As Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Hitch patron says, "The Link Africa Morocco Hitch not only raises much-needed funds for educational development but also serves to educate a new generation in the pleasures and difficulties of exploring the wider world in which we live". The latter part of his statement certainly applied to us.
Hitching really is the strangest experience. At times you get such a buzz from getting a lift, but things never look so hopeless as when you've been thumbing for hours and nobody even gives you a wave. At times it felt like a game of chance, but there was a strategy - you had to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right sign - and have fate on your side. One minute we were contemplating sleeping on a motorway verge, the next on our way to Rennes with a Swiss agriculturalist discussing genetically modified maize. We visited Barcelona - for three hours, delivering pots and pans to the Spanish equivalent of Ikea. We spent cold nights huddles in the backs of trucks and all-nighters in service stations playing snap and downing espresso. We were convinced that our last moments had come as we sat in the back of a rickety Renault 5 overtaking at 160 km/hour on a French motorway. But at the same time we were overwhelmed by people's kindness and generosity.
Against all the odds though, bleary-eyed, in need of showers and still in our Link Africa t-shirts, which by this point did not smell too good, we finally found ourselves on the ferry to Tangier watching the sun set over Gibraltar. We actually did it. Six days (the average is four or five) 13 lifts and 1600 miles and we had reached the shores of Africa. It didn't matter how long it had taken. The couple who won the race did it in 50 odd hours, but probably ended up with fewer stories to tell their grandchildren. Still, the best was yet to come - the Sahara, Marrakech - we were now free to do whatever we wanted, and, at last, to get trains and buses.
On the plane journey back to Britain, looking out over the ground it had taken so long to cover it seemed utterly absurd. But do I regret a minute of it? No. Was it one of the best and most worthwhile things I've ever done? No question. Easter 2001 anyone? I would highly recommend it.
25th May 2000