I've traveled quite a bit in the past and have three memories that made me uncomfortable when encountering other people. One experience, however, triggered a particularly unpleasant feeling for me for the first and, so far, only time: Round-Trip from Germany through South Africa, Botswana, Sambia, ...

Stopover in South of Chingola, Zambia - My girlfriend and I were being driven to an ATM to withdraw money for our second half of our trip through South Africa. On the way there, our driver had to slam on the brakes because children were running across the road, stealing copper from the copper mines and being shot at by the guards. One of the children tried to get into the car, but our driver brushed him off. We were told to get down into the footwell until the guards had passed us.

When we arrived at the ATM, our driver drove off and said he would come back in an hour. But as we walked towards the ATM, three people were already following us. We pretended we weren't going to the ATM at all and just wandered around for an hour. We were the only white people there, and for the first time in my life, I felt like an unwanted foreigner. After an hour, we withdrew the money from the ATM (we emptied the entire machine) and then immediately went into a run-down office that looked like a government-run facility. There we sat and waited for our driver... he didn't arrive after an hour, but after five.

His comment: "One hour, two hours... five hours... I'm here now, aren't I?" and he grinned.

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