Urban Camping: Barter: Share Everything Options

Urban Camping

In a foreign country at the end of my marriage, I traveled nomadically for 11 months staying in 24 places throughout Holland, Portugal, Canada, USA, Brazil and Argentina before buying a home.

It made such an impression on me that I intentionally set out on a second nomadic trip to further explore the concepts of mobility, simplicity, and perspective. While doing my graduate degree, I camped in 30 places in 55 weeks. Now I host urban nomads through the Couchsurfing Project.

18 February 2006

Barter: Share Everything Options

Remember my creative beliefs in 'considering options' and 'sharing everything'?

Twice now, I've heard a story on the BBC World Service about Michael Jospeh of Safari Company in Africa who was facilitating the bartering of cell/mobile telephone airtime.

The example was given of someone who traded telephone airtime for a chicken. Instead of paying 200 shillings for the chicken, the person transferred airtime, on the spot, from his or her telephone account to the account of the chicken owner.

I've not yet been able to find a link to this story at the BBC site, but have contacted them to see if they have more information on this story available online.

Technorati tag: urban camping

1 Comments:

Jennifer Metz said...: Yes, I wish I could find an online reference to it. The second time I heard it on the radio, I stopped everything and wrote down the details so that I could try to look it up.

Another advantage of exchanging airtime was that people in Africa could circumvent issues with having different types of currency. If they traded in airtime, they didn't lose anything in 'exchange rates'.; Tuesday, 21 February, 2006

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About Me

Name: Jennifer Metz

Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands

Thinking outside the box
by getting out of my box.

I want mobility:
Get-up-and-go in the global village. Navigation to other vantage points. What does the world look like from there? Is there room to move? Or am I tied down to my stuff?

I want simplicity:
Real needs and wants are fewer than they sometimes seem. 'Accumulation' is as inevitable as death and taxes. Can I prune back the attention-stealing stuff to give space to the useful and meaningful things?

I want perspective:
Understanding of how multi-faceted life is. Consideration of options. Is the world getting smaller? Or is MY WORLD getting smaller? How many viewpoints have I seen so far? Is there a 'road less traveled' or a million billion different roads? Can I 'get out of the woods' and look for multiple angles?