On Wednesday morning, Joelle, Rob, and I decided to walk into town to get coffee. We took a different route than usual. As we were walking by one of the many guest lodges that line the streets into town, I was struck by something I had never noticed before. The right side of the street had lush green grass, manicured trees and bushes, a fancy lodge, and sprinklers keeping all the plants alive. The left side of the street was straight African bush; dirt, dead plants, and roads leading to local neighborhoods. I had walked by areas of contrast many times before this month, but this time the separation between wealth and poverty really hit me. And it is something I have been thinking about every day since.
How many times do we go through life noticing only the highlights of a place and not diving into the true depths of it?
Victoria Falls is a huge international tourist destination. While we are staying in one of the local neighborhoods that has limited power and water access, we can walk twenty minutes and be in town surrounded by lodges and fancy restaurants. You can come to Victoria Falls and have a luxurious tourist experience and never see how the locals live, even though it is just around the corner. And I’ll be the first to admit it – I’ve been on trips before where I have stayed at extremely nice hotels that are a twenty minute walk from extremely poor neighborhoods. But I have never fully realized the contrast until I was walking down the street where this photo was taken.
My reason for writing about this is to encourage people to experience the local way of life and culture when they travel. Sometimes we go on trips and come back to the States knowing nothing about the country we just visited. I have definitely been that person, and looking back I wish I had taken more time to get to know the locals and learn about their lives. The experience I have had in Zimbabwe has been so enhanced by the fact that I have been living with a local and hanging out with locals every day. I have learned SO much. Much more than I would have learned if I had just come to Victoria Falls to go on safari and do other fun things. And I gotta say, I have loved going on safari since being in Africa. I have loved getting coffee at the lodges in town, have loved talking to tourists and hearing about what part of the world they’re from, and have loved going into the tourist shops. And there is nothing wrong with that at all.
But guess what? All those tourist shops are full of clothing and jewelry that is made by locals who have really cool stories. They have incredible talent that deserves to be recognized every day. Sometimes, their shops are the only means they have to support a family. Other times, a group of girlfriends will come together to start a shop where each of them contribute a certain type of clothing. The men and women who work at the lodges are so incredibly kind and welcoming. The locals of Victoria Falls are some of the most genuine people I have ever met; they truly want visitors to have the best experience possible. But how much better would that experience be if we spent time getting to know the people who make the clothes we buy, the food we eat, and take us on all the cool adventures that are available in vacation destinations around the world?
From firsthand experience of both going on fancy vacations and actually LIVING in a tourist destination, I can confidently say that immersion trumps scraping the surface. People matter, culture matters, and they are both what make Victoria Falls the incredible place it is. 
