My first trip to Africa was to Sierra Leone.

I went with a charity. I raised money. I packed optimism and good intentions into my suitcase alongside malaria tablets and loose cotton dresses. I genuinely believed my visit would make a difference.

And in many ways, it did.

We fundraised. We supported projects. I came home and wrote about it. I encouraged others to visit, to engage, to look beyond headlines. I believed I was contributing something meaningful.

But if I am honest, really honest, there was an unspoken narrative sitting quietly underneath it all.

I thought I was helping.

Not in a cape-wearing, orphanage-building way. Not in the cartoon version of a white saviour that we all now publicly reject. But in a subtler, more socially acceptable way.

Beneath the malaria tablets and moral clarity, there was an assumption.

The assumption that I had something to bring.

And they, by implication, did not.

Not consciously. Not maliciously. But it was there, that subtle Western reflex. We call it “giving back.” We call it “impact.” We call it “making a difference.” It sounds noble.

It is also, occasionally, arrogant.

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The Return

A few months later, I went back to Africa.

This time I wasn’t fund-raising. I wasn’t fixing anything. I wasn’t trying to “make a difference.”

I was going on safari; my first one.

The way that safari came about is a story in itself though.

A couple of years earlier, during Covid, a Tanzanian man called Malaki had reached out to me on Instagram and warmly welcomed me to his country. When I told him I couldn’t afford a safari, he insisted that one day I could, and that I would be welcome when I did. I had absolutely no intention of travelling with him. Every girl has been told not to trust strangers on the internet, and I was not about to become a cautionary tale.

But we stayed in touch.

He engaged with my posts. I engaged with his. The conversation was light, occasional, friendly. Around that time, I was beginning to explore the idea that my blog could actually make money, that perhaps it could become something more than a hobby. And one day, half practically and half curiously, I suggested a trade.

The Trade

I had noticed he didn’t have a website.

So I offered to build him one in exchange for a half price safari.

There was only one small problem: I had never actually built a website before.

I had created my own blog; functional, basic, held together more by determination than technical skill, but I had no formal training. Still, it was better than nothing. And he agreed.

So that is how I found myself flying to Tanzania to meet a man I had only ever spoken to through a screen, for what is, for many people, a once-in-a-lifetime holiday.

I wasn’t entirely certain he would even be at the airport.

My internal logic was simple: if he didn’t show up, at least I would have learned how to build a website.

It was bravado masking uncertainty.

We sent money in advance. We boarded the plane. And when we walked into Kilimanjaro Airport and scanned the crowd, there was a brief, quiet moment of doubt.

Then I saw him.

Cowboy hat. Broad grin. Exactly where he said he would be.

A Safari That Wasn’t Meant to Change Anything

The website had done what it needed to do. And Malaki took my then husband and me on an unforgettable seven-day safari.

That safari was only ever meant to be a safari.

But Malaki had other ideas.

From the moment we got into the vehicle, he was asking questions. He wanted to learn. He wanted to understand how Western customers think. He wanted to know how to build trust. He knew I had an Instagram following, modest at the time, around five thousand, and he was convinced that I could act as his travel agent.

I kept telling him the truth: my blog didn’t convert. My Instagram didn’t convert. Nobody was booking anything through me.

He believed in my ability before I did.

Throughout that week, he picked our brains relentlessly. Commercial questions, marketing questions, pricing questions. I answered as best I could. Often, he would then turn to Doug and ask what he thought, as though a second opinion from a man might carry more weight. I won’t pretend that didn’t irritate me. It did. But I put it down to cultural differences.

When Belief Became Conversion

At the end of the safari, he asked again if I would become a partner.

I said no.

I could bring knowledge, yes. But I didn’t think I brought enough to justify a partnership. I had no intention of becoming a travel agent. I would share the trip honestly on my Instagram, as I did with every destination, but the promotion would be finite. I would move on to another country. Another story. Another post.

Except something unexpected happened.

People loved the content.

For the first time, they didn’t just like the photos. They wanted to book something I had experienced. So they contacted Malaki.

And this is where reality intruded.

The communication faltered. Not because he was dishonest. Not because he was incapable. But because building trust with Western customers, customers raised on stories of Nigerian princes and internet scams, requires a particular kind of language. A particular kind of reassurance.

Unlike me, those potential clients did not feel comfortable sending large sums of money to someone they had never met in person.

Helping, Not Saving

And that was the moment I stepped in.

At that stage, I very much believed I was the one bringing something to this relationship.

I offered to look at the emails. I suggested I manage the customer communication for a month or two until we refined a strategy, a strategy we still use today. I believed I was simply helping someone who needed help.

But here is the crucial point.

Malaki never needed saving.

He didn’t need a white woman to rescue his business.

He needed support in a specific area that wasn’t his expertise. He was a one-man band trying to run safaris, answer emails, market his services and build trust in markets that had been conditioned to mistrust him.

The Part I Didn’t See Coming

What I didn’t realise at the time was that I needed him far more than I understood.

Because through that collaboration, through refining emails, converting bookings, navigating mistakes, learning how safaris truly operate, and watching him slowly learn to trust a woman to handle the commercial side of his business, something shifted inside me.

This small side project became proof.

Proof that I had value outside corporate life.

Proof that the skills I had learned in sales and customer service were transferable beyond boardrooms and quarterly targets.

Proof that I could build something ethical and profitable at the same time.

Reciprocity

He often says that without me, he wouldn’t be where he is today.

But the truth is far less one-sided.

Without him… without him trusting me, without him insisting I help, without him believing in my ability before I did, I would never have had the courage to leave corporate life. This business is the part of my work that allows me to live sustainably outside that system. It is the foundation that made the leap possible.

I went to Africa believing I would make a difference. And perhaps, in some small way, I did. But the bigger truth is this:

Africa made the difference in me.

Not through charity.

Not through philanthropy.

Not through building orphanages or giving away savings.

But through partnership.

Through enabling rather than rescuing.

Through discovering that I could share what I had learned in corporate life with those who wanted it, and learn just as much in return.

He brings a Tanzanian mentality to everything that happens on the ground. I bring a Western understanding of marketing and trust to the customers booking from afar.

Neither is superior.

Both are necessary.

And without that exchange. without that stranger on the internet who showed up at the airport in a cowboy hat, I would still be sitting in a corporate office convincing myself I was making a difference there instead.

I may have gone to Africa thinking I would change something.

But Africa changed the trajectory of my life.