Kenyan
Wakili Timam and a new friend "Our lives are based on our respective circumstances. And this guy may be homeless but he's not lost touch with his goodness"

A Kenyan biker on a free-roaming trip took a moment to share his thoughts on South Africa, challenging misconceptions and praising local efforts!

 

South Africa (26 January 2025) — A Kenyan biker recently took a moment to share his thoughts following time spent in South Africa, praising the efforts of local people that keep so many parts of our country safe and proud amid other compliments that offered a refreshing rebuttal to the misconceptions South Africa often faces.

Wakili prefaced by explaining that he is no stranger to free-roaming adventures via his motorcycle. For him, it’s a gift of an opportunity that comes at the end of every year, offering a time to expand his mind and meet new people who often become dear friends.

Of his recent trip, Wakili dubbed it “the most special one of them all.” Passing through multiple countries, including South Africa, the Kenyan biker expressed that what draws him to a place is not necessarily the attractions that many tourists seek out but rather the people.

“You never really know what to expect and that’s the most beautiful aspect of my travels because the spirit of adventure always determines the outcome, which is always beyond the scope of my imagination,” he writes.

For Wakili, getting to truly know a new area means being fearless. However, when it came to venturing South Africa-side, those who knew his brave approach to travel warned him to meet South Africa cautiously.

“Knowing me, my friends understandably warned me to be careful about my random stops and interactions in South Africa,” Wakili noted.

But, his experience came as a welcomed contrast to the warnings.

Speaking about the parts of South Africa he had visited thus far, Wakili highlighted that he had not faced harassment, drama, or fear. He shared that the narrative toward South Africa’s danger is, in fact, “not in every part of the country” as the unsuspecting traveller might assume, nor is it all “doom and gloom.”

“I shall endeavour to compose good narratives about the places I stayed in while in Jo’burg and Bloemfontein within the course of this trip,” he added in a nod to these characters of his adventure.

Another element that spoke to him was the fact that many locals put a lot of effort into making their homes welcoming.

“The Cape Provinces are surprisingly the nicest tourist-friendly laces to visit in South Africa mainly because the people who live here have put so much effort to make it a safe space for the people who venture into this part of the work. The same is happening in various other parts of the country where I have been to including some sections of Jo’burg such as Boksburg among others.”

In light of discrimination warnings, Wakili had the following to share:

“I had been grossly misguided that I’d experience so much racism in the Afrikaans territories and I came here ready to find out what that feels like. I wasn’t hoping to get discriminated against. As a motorcyclist, I have experienced enough discrimination in Kenya by my own people, some of whom are not doing so well in life and it never really moves me. I just wanted to expose myself to this thing which people talk about and my experiences here have taught me something which I’d love to share with whoever is able to read this.”

In more food for thought, Wakili writes:

“Human conflict should not be defined by where a person is from, or by their physical appearance or by the language they speak or even by their religious, social, political, ethnic or financial status. AN AXXHOLE IS AN AXXHOLE no matter where they’re from. A THIEF is a THIEF regardless of whether they are a president or a pauper. A disrespectful person, inconsiderate people, violent people, annoying people and liars are just human beings who are or choose to be like that on their own volition. They must not be construed to represent a group of other people in their misdeeds unless it is unequivocally and unanimously communicated that the masses have approved it.”

Of the unity he experienced in parts of our country, he put it beautifully by writing:

“The Southern part of South Africa is filled with people who genuinely care about their society and have put in concerted efforts to make it work in their favour. The Cape is a functional part of the world. The Cape works and we could all borrow a leaf from them.”

To the larger narrative of misjudging a place or person simply because of a widely-shared narrative, Wakili said:

“If you are reading this and you hate or dislike someone because someone else told you something negative about them, please summon yourself to a brief meeting and disabuse yourself from that nonsense. You don’t deserve to carry a burden which doesn’t belong to you. We must stop hating others because someone told us that they were bad people. We have misused the phrase one fly spoils the whole pot of soup in the human context. We must not let entire communities, societies, races, religions etc be branded as bad because of the actions of a few bad elements. Bad individuals are bad for everyone including their own people. Let’s start making that clear.”


Sources: Wakili Timan/Facebook 
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About the Author

Ashleigh Nefdt is a writer for Good Things Guy.

Ashleigh's favourite stories have always seen the hidden hero (without the cape) come to the rescue. As a journalist, her labour of love is finding those everyday heroes and spotlighting their spark - especially those empowering women, social upliftment movers, sustainability shakers and creatives with hearts of gold. When she's not working on a story, she's dedicated to her canvas or appreciating Mother Nature.

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