The Weird Discovery in Tanzania That Tommy Sabbatical Was Not Prepared For

Shaq here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shaq. Thank you, Mr. Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big, tall, and handsome? Not always. I was 6'10 once. Seven days delivered or returned, Mr. Shaq? Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven day return policy at carvana.com. Hey guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five star review. They're both a huge, huge help. Thank you. Now, did you have, before you were starting YouTube, did you have like some money saved up from the work you were doing to be able to fund yourself for a while? Because obviously you got to travel places that cost money. And like at the beginning, as we all know, when you're starting a channel, you don't make money. Yeah. That's, that's a good question because I had actually basically used up a lot of my money. I had a lot of money. I had a lot of like all my money at that point. Right. Cause this was like, it was almost like a year before I started doing this from like when I left China and like my businesses hadn't been running anymore. So yeah, what's funny was like they were sending out those like those checks during COVID like Biden and Trump. Yeah, the stimulus checks. And with literally with that stimulus check, I booked my flight to Tanzania and I was probably on like my last, last thousand dollars, like no joke. So this was like, I was literally doing like a Hail Mary. Was that the second flight to Tanzania? The second flight to Tanzania. Right. Yeah. So you're like, it's got to work. I got to do something viral in Tanzania. Yeah. It's a good sign of my insanity or stupidity that I thought this would be a good idea because like the chances of it working were pretty minute, but somehow it did. Somehow it did. I think it's cause there was like literally no other videos of Africa at that time, or at least vlogs like that. What happened? You get on the ground in Tanzania. Did you have any idea what kind of content you were doing? Or you're like, I got to go find something. Yeah. I mean, I had like a mild idea, but what I usually do is I just fly to the country and then I start researching when I'm there. Cause I feel like I could learn more by like talking to locals and they'll be like, yo, this is cool. You should go here. Or like, this is crazy. Or there's Nazis over there. So. You ever seen Tanzania? A fun fact. It was a German colony. Oh God. God damn it. There was a big world one, excuse me, world war one battle back in the day. All right. We'll leave that one to the side. But you get there, you start talking to people. What, what stories piqued you that you ended up going after? So at that point, like those were like really early days. So you know what? I thought people would just be interested in watching me like walk around. Talk to people. And that's basically what I did. Zanzibar is actually pretty awesome. It's like a big like resort destination. Like the Europeans like to go to it. Yeah. Yeah. Billy Joel song. Zanzibar, right? Yeah. There you go. Yeah. He's a Long Island guy. I think Freddie Mercury was born there or something. Was he really? Yeah. Frederick Mercury, born in Zanzibar. Yeah. Cause he's like, I think Iranian Indian descent or something. No shit. Yeah. Yeah. A cool place. A very cool place. I recommend it. It used to be like this, like Omani colony. Keep that, keep that mic close, by the way. It used to be like a, an Omani colony and they built like these crazy cities there that still stand. It's called Stone Town. Stone. Can we Google that? Stone Town, Zanzibar. Yeah. That's also a hard name for a video. Yeah. Going into the stone ages of Zanzibar. There you go. Here we go. All right. So that, that's Zanzibar right there on the coast. We can see that. Yeah. And then is that one right below it, what you're talking about? If you go up, up to the right, Deef. Right there. Yeah. Is that it? Yeah, that's it. So is this like castles, old castles? So it's got, it almost looks like an old city in the Middle East a little bit, but yeah, they had some like forts and just the whole city is like, yeah. Yeah. Architecture from 400 years ago. And they got like markets down there too. That's really cool. Bazaars. Bazaars. Yeah. I'm sorry. That is the correct term. Yeah, no, it was, it's a really awesome place to walk around. I heavily recommend it. It's a very unique place in Africa also. I don't know of anywhere else like it. So you had videos that did really well of you just talking to the people here at the time. Yeah. Yeah. This was the moment when I realized like I could just start filming and I might in the next couple of weeks encounter somebody that would say something so insane that it could be a video. So what'd they say that was insane? Well, my first viral video, I don't know if I should be proud of this, but like was like in a village in rural Tanzania. And I'm just like trying to find like this mystical banana liquor that they have there. Oh, a mystical what? A banana liquor that's made from bananas. Banana liquor? Yeah. I wanted to try it and that was supposed to be what the video was about. And I was like, you know, I don't know. But like, I stopped at this bar to like find it. They don't have it. And then like the, I think she was like the owner of the bar. She's just like, hey, my daughters are here. Do you want to talk to them? And then like, it slowly turns into I'm like, is she trying to like marry me off to like her two daughters? So we just like travel around and then we finally find like a shack, like serving this liquor. It's kind of nasty, but I was like, you know what? Yolo, like for the experience. And, um, I just uploaded that. And I was like, I was forced into polygamy in Tanzania. That was the title. That's a good title. So wait, you were forced into polygamy. So when the camera stopped, some cool things happened. Well, that's, that's a trade secret, but no, I actually didn't see it. Are you married legally in Tanzania? Is that what you're telling me? I'm actually not sure. I'm not sure. I got, I think I got married like four times when I was in Africa. Okay. You get the benefits of marriage? Um, I don't know if I could say that. I don't know if I can put that out there. That's, uh, protect identity. Okay. It's a good title. Yeah. It was a great, uh, it was a very, uh, noteworthy experience. Excellent. And, uh, for some reason that video has like 9 million views. I, you know, I'm not surprised. Can we just, I didn't even see that title. I didn't even look at the title. What was it? The polygamy? I- I was forced into polygamy. Forced into polygamy against your will. In rural Tanzania. Yeah. It's totally against your will. It was, yeah, completely. You were not happy about it. I was, it was torture. Have you talked to a therapist? It was worse than the Russian prison. Yeah. It was, it was rough. Right. It's a great title. Okay. Yeah. Let's, oh, you're still doing the walk and talk with the cam. Yeah. Let's roll that real quick. Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. Roll, roll the beginning, Deef. I just want to, I want to see where the walk and talk is. Good morning. Good morning. From the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. The Chaga people for a thousand years have lived on the side of the mountain. And they still continue to do so today. They're known for two things. One is being very good at business. The second is that they frequently get drunk on bananas. Today, I'm going to go and investigate both of these things. I'd like to marry. So if you've never seen a Tanzanian bus station before, this will be an expression of itself. How do you say beautiful in Chaga? Oh, they're eyeing you up. They're eyeing you up, dog. Alright, you are beautiful. If you want to say that, you have to say it like this. She's teaching you. She likes you. It was really good. That's right. At what point did the sexual favors begin? That's around minute 30. Let's go to the next spike. Right there. I think there's an OnlyFans link in there. Got it. Oh, is this the father marrying you off to them? Oh, they got kids too. They had kids, yeah. You're about to be the father that stepped up. You like the white guy? Yeah. The kids are saying yeah too. Yeah, we talked before. I had no idea what they were saying. Can you help me get to Mbege? She said let's go together. I see where this is going. So it took like a van to like some shack or something like that. To a shack. To a shack, yeah, as you know, which is where they serve the actual liquor. I don't think it was even like a bar. It was just like a shack. You went to the back room of the shack too? There was not actually a back room, but there was a back of the shack. That's right. Yeah. And then. Oh, this is where it's. Yeah, so and then you can say I have a new husband. That's a great screen grab right there. Look at her face. She's like, fuck yeah. And then the chick on the other side is like, get the cameras up. Let's go. This is like one of those like Mormon porn videos, but there's no Mormons around. Right. I mean, you got like eight wives and the dude. - Tanzanian Mormons. - Yes, that's right. i can see that i could see your future there yeah yeah so um you never brought them back to the u.s unfortunately not i unfortunately did not see them again after that we were going in different directions but you got a side piece in the country if you need it i yeah if i go back to tanzania yeah which i do love tanzania by the way it's a wonderful country it seems like it recommend everyone visit they got safaris also i've heard great things about the safaris in tanzania and other countries over there is definitely a dream of mine to go do that yeah yeah um did you get to do that i take it over there i did yeah off camera i didn't think it would be like you didn't roll camera for the fucking elephants and shit what's wrong with you no i did because uh you could actually uh i think this is in uganda actually you can see elephants walking on the side of the road i was just like you know what i think that's more fun just like it's not even a safari yeah fucking elephants on the side of the road did you get video of that i did all right yeah it's in there yeah i love elephants yeah they're the best one of if not the most common dms i get on instagram are many of you asking me what my favorite books are well today's your lucky day because if you use the link in my description below to join my newsletter i'm going to give you my top 10 book recommendations right now also if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make money producing content from the show you can do so via the discord link in my description below and finally you can join my patreon for early uncensored releases of the podcast as always please take one second to hit that subscribe button if you haven't already i really appreciate that also the like button is a big help and you can join my newsletter via the link in the description um did you look at any of the poaching culture over there at all because obviously that's a huge problem across a lot of africa yeah i think that might have been in the back of my mind but uh my bad you're good uh i think that was in the back of my mind but uh no one over there gives a shit so no one brought it up um it wasn't really a thing um that was being talked about so yeah didn't quite explore it yeah it's i was also um i had like barely any money at that point so i had to find like the cheapest safari ever uh normally they're like a thousand two thousand dollars uh because it's you know it's like for like these rich uh american european tourists yeah and uh i had like 200 bucks so i found one that was like you know what there's not gonna be any lions on this one hopefully but we'll show you some giraffes and shit yeah so they're like handing you a gun from 1870 dropping you off safari boy yeah yeah for this one we don't have a car we're just gonna like throw you out there um and then if you make it back it's good tests yeah good test out there it was a fun experience though it's amazing how a lot of these places like you talk about zanzibar which is obviously like a major metropolis and all that but places like this because of where they are geographically you can have that and then like you said on the side of the road there could be elephants and when you walk across the road just out of the city it's a full-blown open national geographic shoot you know it's it's unbelievable yeah seriously um they do have laws there where like the people can't build their houses like in the actual grazing lands um because these safaris are like a major cash go for this country so yeah they go out of their way to protect them but there are towns just close enough where yeah you might have like a lion wander in once in a while uh yeah that's not fun to find in your backyard so you did find a lion in your backyard uh unfortunately i still have never seen a lion in person outside of a zoo so that's for the best yeah you would think so i did uh make a video with this one masai tribe where they have a tradition where you're not a man until you go out and kill a lion with your bare hands supposedly with your bare hands i think that was it yeah like 20 21 000 lions in africa like what the fuck are we doing come on tribe uh they might be responsible for like uh half of the deaths yeah i don't like that i don't like that that's uh yeah um i'm all for tribal you know doing their traditions and stuff but you know there's a few things here and there it's like yeah there's a lot at stake uh if they don't kill that lion they can't form their own church and then they can't have like 10 wives or 50 wives like this one guy did so 50 it's a big deal it's a big deal oh no he had 10 wives and 50 kids 10 wives and 50 kids yeah that's a lot of alimony checks they don't have alimony there so he was uh he was busy he wasn't wasting any time the masai tribe of kenya and tanzania is famous for the traditional rite of passage where young men had to kill a lion to become recognized as a warrior however the idea that they did this with their bare hands is a myth they historically used iron spears and shields so they went straight up maximus decimus meridius on these motherfuckers they're like they're like are you not entertained that's nuts man oh so they were trying to show off to me they're like no we actually use our hands where else have you been in africa at this point uh quite a few places um i started off in east africa which um i like all of africa but i would say if you're a beginner that's the best place to start yeah if you're just getting into it um like because uh kenya tanzania they're a little more used to tourists so and they're people are really friendly though but i've also been to west africa uh those countries were pretty crazy uh nigeria yeah especially um nigeria's popping off nigeria was insane um it's i it's probably the second most corrupt country in the world i don't say second because congo was number one which is also in africa yeah but uh i actually went viral on national news in nigeria because again not trying to do this i bring a camera into the airport and it's the most like horrifying airport in existence it's just like you could literally bribe anyone in the airport to do anything so it's just like you want to cut the line okay just give this guy like five bucks you want to bring this through security give this guy maybe 10 bucks yeah um they're like there's people like shouting at me for no reason because they see i have a camera i mean you can imagine why yeah um the police they try to like have me delete the footage but um they didn't realize that if you just like delete the footage but not out of like the deleted files folder it's still there that trash can is helpful it's very helpful so uh that footage survived and i uploaded it and um it just went crazy in the country they were like all these nigerians started contacting me they were like thank you for doing this like we've been complaining about this for so long like the government said they're actually going to do something now which i think they actually did they like went in for like a month or two and were like making sure there was no corruption but i mean i kind of yeah i know nigeria more or less and i think they went back to it after that but uh yeah it was wild yeah and like my the nigerian diaspora is unbelievable like every nigerian i know they're like a doctor a lawyer yeah a company they're like fucking geniuses and it's like a lot of them it's because a lot of them are leaving the country too because there's all kinds of issues there yeah well it's kind of like new york it's like if you could make it there you can make it anywhere right it's insane there it's like so as soon as like yeah you want like a better job a better life you know what they're just like yeah we're not gonna make it anywhere we're not gonna get that here so let's go over to the u.s let's go to europe yeah so that what year were you in nigeria um uh 2021 yeah okay because we just all these things we've been looking at actually happened the same year wow that was a packed year 2021 it was very busy okay i think i made like something like half my videos actually just that one year in 2021 yeah wow but i think um a lot of travel vloggers like make the same mistake when they start off they're just like i'm just gonna film everything and upload everything and i was kind of in that mentality so i was making like a billion videos yeah but again you got to figure out like what's working and what's not and what you're interested in what's not as part of it but yeah because didn't we just was wasn't there like trump just like bombed nigeria i can't even keep track of the shit he bombed them like six seven months ago or some shit um for like yeah that was uh like last year on christmas day perfect perfect celebration all right what do you do thief all right so on december 25th 2025 president don trump announced that the u.s launched airstrikes against isis militants in northwestern nigeria the strikes involving tomahawk missiles were conducted in coordination with the nigerian government and targeted militant camps in sokoto state yeah i think it was like they were killing the isis guys were like killing some of the local christians and stuff so he hit him on christmas there you go that's exactly what trump would know yeah i think it was like they were killing the isis guys were like killing some of yeah do you ever like because you're all over the world all the time and so you hear the news while you're in all these other places i imagine it comes up as you've already alluded to with the people around you does it give you like a totally different perspective on like the things that the united states does around the world because you're in these other places while you're hearing about it um i'm glad you asked that because um yeah one of the things i discovered was like the living especially living abroad but even just traveling abroad for like a long period of time will give you a different perspective on america like and you can only i feel get that perspective by doing that um there's maybe like half ways to it but and then you go to these countries like uh nigeria iraq whatever and then you meet these people and you're you ask them like damn what was it like what was it like uh when the u.s was here like bombing shit and stuff it was like yeah that sucked uh it's over now but you know life goes on and and again yeah the people are not their government you realize they're people just like you uh some of them i mean like in iraq there was a few times where i had guys that were like we need to make sure he's not like a jewish spy there was a guy like saying this like right in front of me uh and i was like which forced me to say things like uh no i'm not jewish alone yeah yeah i'm not jewish by the way holding up a cross or something yeah pre-palestine you know what you gotta do in those situations you do what you gotta do yeah when were you in iraq 2021 uh no that's so that came much later that was actually uh last december uh so not too long ago what was that like being in iraq now um that was a very interesting trip for sure um it was very surprising also because um i basically went from the north all the way to the south so i saw all different parts of the country and i kept meeting people that were like wow you're the first american i ever met i'm so happy about this i want to give you food i want to give you this i want to give you this like the most generous country i've ever been to and you would never expect that necessarily before going um but there are some uh like divisions in the i think yes uh americans now there's some divisions in the country and um there's like all these different groups have different opinions on america so their like reactions would vary um so for example the kurds uh they had kind of been like screwed over by the u.s a few times but they also remember that like we were very supportive of them so we still haven't given them a country though yeah yeah so they were i guess like neutral neutral towards positive uh weirdly like the in my experience the sunnis were pretty positive towards americans because like they disliked the shias who are like in control of the country now um and we also helped get rid of the islamic state which they didn't like so okay that makes sense yeah um and then but the majority of the country in the south is like shia and i i don't think i've ever talked about this anywhere actually like there was this one place um i believe it's like the holiest place in like shia islam they have like this tower there and i really wanted to see this we'll find it yeah yeah um i actually forgot the name of the city i think it starts with an s but it's like an hour or two hours north of baghdad uh imam al-shreen in najaf housing the tomb of ali ibn al-talib the cousin and son-in-law of muhammad and the first shia imam yeah there was um one other uh yeah i don't know if you could find it yeah holiest shia sites in iraq i could definitely point it out okay we'll get it and you said you visited this place yeah i went there and um yeah just zoom in a bit okay just like a little north of baghdad you can zoom in little north uh let's see that's where it is yeah that's it all right so can we google shia holy site in samara that's the tower yeah that's probably yeah is that what you're talking about that's what i was talking about yeah so the very that's fucking cool looking looks like a wedding cake yeah it's uh so that's what i thought i'd be doing if i went there i thought i'd be doing a wedding cake i thought i could like climb the tower and take a picture like that or something they didn't let you do that so um i don't know when they stopped letting people do that but now it's like fenced off you can view it from a distance but the really notable thing that i did not quite uh realize before going there was that this city is actually controlled by shia militants not the iraqi government right so all over iraq you have like checkpoints and they're run by like the iraqi check your passport and they'll be like oh you have a visa but okay fine they'll be friendly usually and let you go the militias are a little bit different they're like you're american that's very suspect they had me like get out of the car the taxi like do you have this on film uh no to be honest with you i was really shook at that yeah i can imagine i didn't know if you just still had it in your hand though i still had russia in the back of my head and i was like i don't want to fuck with this i don't want to fuck with this this was the first time i've ever been in russia i don't want to fuck with this this was the first time i've ever been in russia i don't want to fuck with this this was the first time i've ever been in russia i don't want to fuck with this this was supposed to be like a more calm year or something and i was like but um so they pull you out of the car the question you i do have um footage uh it's in my iraq video actually of being like pulled out of the car and just uh having my uh baggage searched in another city remember where don't ever come to iraq or else another great title there you go uh right there it's the first spike probably earlier yeah it's before i get to like the town it's along the way i go before that i go even earlier yeah somewhere right there yeah all right let's let's get some volume on this and roll it yeah i have my passport you have your passport yes let's make sure we plug the instagram sabbatical.tommy who's this can we pause that real quick who is that guy so these are just some uh passengers in the taxi in iraq they have uh shared taxis which people usually take instead of buses yeah we have those here too do we yeah we got shared ubers oh damn i've been out of america okay so these guys are just randos in there but they could be spies uh i mean theoretically theoretically all right let's keep going you're going to al-azhar they're trying to guide me to like the right place i didn't even know where i was going where i'm going yeah the right place no lines on the road huh no okay so this is the actual checkpoint oh right so you're outside now yeah oh i'd be shitting i left my camera on in the bag they just take it out passport oh they're holding the bag yeah i just got it the checkpoint oh you're like russia part two i didn't actually uh put the police on because apparently that's very illegal is he moroccan he's american you don't look moroccan i don't know where the hell they got them yeah that was actually a little bit stressful going through those checkpoints sometimes i really feel american here i'm surprised yeah you look it all right that's good right there so that was you got through it they just were like you're good um yeah they were like yeah nothing weird here but the um so the checkpoint in samara that was run by the shia militants they like took me out of the car for like 20 minutes and it was like holding up the entire taxi and i felt like really bad about that and they were being nasty towards me so like by the time they finally like let me in and i realized like i'm fully within like a zone control but like shia militants that still have like a grudge against the u.s i just got like completely shook i was like i don't want to film here i don't even want to be here like i'm like i'm just gonna get out of here and i ended up like just finding another taxi um and like about 20 minutes later i was on the road back to baghdad back to baghdad safe safe yeah there's a safe confines of baghdad when people talk about baghdad in here it's usually you know you know so it's a little different a bit of a different vibe when was the part where they were calling you a jewish spy was that the cops there oh that's actually in that video um i i believe or they say something about israel in there uh so there's uh this is actually really cool this is the part of iraq i wanted the show where it's like this guy with like 15 kids again uh he's like hey you know you haven't had lunch yeah i'll come i'll make lunch for you do you check point um it's probably no exaggeration they actually asked me are you jewish first of all i'm not jewish i'm definitely not jewish in this country it's a little bit past this nice to meet you what's interesting about this town actually yeah i'll just explain this it's like there's a shrine like a jewish shrine and um it still has like the star of david and stuff inside of it but they i think they converted it into a mosque but they still but they keep the star they keep the star out of respect yeah yeah it was interesting it's the only place in iraq like each other's religions yeah we need more of that in the world exactly all right we're this is it Okay, so they're in the bedroom. Okay, so this is like their living room, basically, possibly dining room. I wonder who's on the wall there. Those are, yeah, like Shia prophets or important people in Shia Islam. Got it. You can see that this is a Shia household, Prophet Imam Hussain up there, the most important person in Shia Islam besides the main man himself. Most of this region is Shia. That's not what I was expecting when I came out here. So I've basically been sitting here for like five minutes by myself. That would naturally lead me to the conclusion that I literally at the riverbank just said I'm hungry. They brought me to their house and now they're just cooking a meal on the spot. How many countries in the world do you live in? some of them spoke arabic and you don't speak any kurdish like just the basics of it like some greetings and stuff but um for the people i found that spoke arabic or english there were some people that spoke english um i got to know like their story basically they're not getting like any funding or anything for their refugee camps now so they're just kind of like stuck in their situation that's horrible man yeah we went around and uh we bought a bunch of stuff for like the kids in the town got cutest kids ever they look like they could be like anything some of them look like they were swedish some of them look like they're from saudi arabia or something like every kind of like ethnicity that's kind of like the kurds in general yeah yeah it's amazing there's like 33 million kurds and they have these provinces where basically they rule yeah but they don't have on the map lines that show that they have a country yeah yeah it's uh one of the more foreign forgotten uh quests for self-determination in the world i would say because like yeah they're spread across four countries including iran and turkey most notably um and yeah just because of pure geopolitics it will probably never happen i made another video called uh the country that will never be a country uh which i filmed in uh southern turkey southeastern turkey i should say which is like the kurdish region yeah my buddy eric zuliger's banned from turkish for life because he was on a train and they came by and asked him where he was coming from and he said kurdistan no shit yeah no shit well i hope i'm not bad they don't have a day they don't like that they don't like that there all right inside the country that will never be a country let's give this some some vol and roll um yeah you could skip towards like maybe the middle of it so this is a kurdish enclave you're in um yeah king of the castle king of the castle uh i think i actually like the later parts of the video we go to like this place without a major war with the turkish government yeah over the many years of conflict how's the life here life isn't good everything is so expensive the new year things are worse bread costs 25 which is about 25 so who's the woman you're with right there um she also has like a small youtube channel i make videos with her once in a while yeah she's uh kind of adventurous also american it's from indonesia indonesia how'd you meet her uh in indonesia um just in the capital um we had like a chance encounter and chance encounter that's what you did there uh and um yeah we uh found out she was interested in making videos and then uh went from there hope you told her you're a married man uh yeah yeah i was you want to be the fifth so that was how i worked it up so there were four okay nice to meet you bye-bye yeah friendly kurdish people yeah here in the neighborhood trying to make sure that uh there's nothing uh inappropriate going on here oh yeah buddy no money we're walking towards the grand mosque of diarbakir we'll be careful i think that was a garbage truck that is a good idea it's just that very narrow street i came up with it myself all right so this is the grand mosque of diarbakir of ahmed may needs a hijab to go in so could he use he's not supposed for a man though that's supposed to be like a kurdish scarf yeah oh it is yeah i don't know this is the bandana that i bought uh back in his mirror a head covering is a head cover and you're also showing turkish pride you're showing you're showing kurdish pride by the way so oh that guy turned back he's like turkish uh very basic so they're speaking turkish that's what they're speaking i didn't know what the hell it was and then turkish women are not even wearing hijabs once again even out here turkey is more liberal than you thought so is that like an open so here we have the grand mosque of diarbakir so it's open air the big one yeah or i think this is actually one of the oldest cities in the world history going back almost 5 000 years of course there have been many different groups and religions that have passed through this area but has been muslim for the last 1500 years all right may as someone from a muslim country uh had a little bit of experience with this area how does this work how do you wash your feet your hands yeah you did so much effort that's pretty cool it is cool the water was free they actually bring while you do it how long ago was this one um around the same time i went to iraq so last december no no i'm just kidding i'm from america yeah you came here from america uh yeah i'm a youtuber yeah you are from here yeah i'm from europe particularly 100 percent from here nice nice yeah yeah i'm kurdish yeah wow how is life here yeah it's good uh before i was living in ontario istanbul okay after 15 years i came back to my hometown wow you missed home yeah i miss here sometimes i wasn't here okay they're here we are a better life yeah we are we are good family we are very open you do seem to have some nice people here yeah yeah be careful fair enough yeah you did say uh thank you he had some more uh controversial takes off camera but uh you want to enlighten us still want to get him in trouble but uh you know you can imagine right what he thought about the region okay yeah free free the kurds i got you yeah that's like a whole thing now because now you got like some of the hardliners in israel trying to scream that turkey's the next iran or something i mean you know are we just gonna keep trying to find a war everywhere it gets a little tiring it gets exhausting right a little exhausting yeah i mean um i i try to uh if i can't stay out of politics in my videos i'm like pretty like even on that i think both sides are up good but uh i my one opinion is i think the middle east is the middle east and i mean if we're not if we don't have like a direct reason to be there then we shouldn't be messing around there so it is uh unfortunate that yeah we keep getting drawn into conflicts there or starting yeah it's when you look at everywhere we've been for the past over you know like basically 25 years it just seems to destabilize a bunch of places and you get to see the human side of it to where the people who are forced to live with the bombs dropping all the time are now you know adjusting to their life and the aftermath of that whole period that still continues in many places obviously but it's like to me especially the more we get involved with things that are completely avoidable i'm not saying like everyone is great and there's not evil out there there is you can't just go bomb everyone you don't like though you can't just go bomb everyone you don't like though it to me it just creates more and more generational distrust and dislike towards america and you know i would obviously you've met a lot of these people in person and stuff it's like they're normal people and they may hold some of those beliefs because of the things that have happened to them and their family and you know i wish it wasn't that way and i didn't have anything to do with that myself but i understand why they feel that way yeah that was a really hard thing to do with the people that are in the middle east because you meet all these different groups and they all have like different like hopes and dreams about like what state they should be living in and they all really have like valid claims to what they're saying you know it's like so i'd meet like the kurds i'd meet the palestinians i'd meet uh people in iraq all different kinds of people in iraq uh i met i haven't talked about this before i met iranians in oman and dubai afterward after the war started after the war started yeah and um what was really trippy for me was they would be like we want trump to continue bombing iran we want uh we want the netanyahu to keep bombing iran i at least the iranians i met they're all like very pro like war pro-trump pro like everything but i mean obviously the i don't know if i should be saying that when i want to go there but uh yeah the the government there is uh maybe not the best and um and it's like yeah you just end up having a lot of sympathy for all these different people you're like yeah i want you guys to have like your ideal government i want you to have freedom um i want the kurds to have freedom i want uh i want the turks to have like the best country possible i love all these different people um right but they all hate each other so it's like fuck i don't know what to do i just know that america can't solve it by itself that's right and i think and it's a good point you make too it's like you know an unfortunate casualty information wise in the ongoing iran war is that people are so pissed off about us being in this whole thing that there's now people who are like well maybe their government's not that bad strictly because they're that pissed off and like that fact doesn't change it's it's it's been obviously they've been living under a totalitarian regime since 1979 covered that over the years on on this show many different times and like that doesn't change it's it's horrible and i wish they could have a new government the fact of the matter is and i would imagine this is even harder for someone like you who knows these people on the ground and wants the best for them like you were just saying but the fact of the matter is it is on people to change their government sometimes like it's not you can't just have other countries like the united states try to come in and wreak havoc and get a new government because it ends up like i think if we've proved anything we're not very good at rebuilding nations at least at this point in time you know and so in some ways it's like you feel like you're stuck between a shit and a fart right like you stay out they stay under the control of the regime you go in you cause massive fucking third fourth fifth and tenth order effects and it's just not the world unfortunately is really really complicated it is yeah that's it's like just one of those situations where there's no good answer that's right i would think that's right have you spent any time in in palestine and israel at all like since the conflict really popped off there obviously it's always been popping off but in the last few years yep that was another uh very notable experience on my channel you could say uh again i swear i did this unintentionally uh yeah like uh i ended up being in israel and palestine just like about three weeks after october 7th uh three years ago you have remarkable timing i really do it's almost like you have good intelligence yeah i wish i did uh it was like i had been planning to go there anyway i had the flights booked and then i was like i'll still go but um yeah so that was a very very interesting experience um i as soon as i got there i had to fly into tel aviv um literally as soon as i check into my airbnb uh there's sirens uh there's like missiles or whatever coming from gaza so i'm like okay that's how it is here um i met with all different kinds of people i met uh like protesters in israel that are like against like the constant fighting i met obviously the majority of the israeli population is like super pro everything they're doing um but i would say uh probably the highlight of the trip was going into the west bank and um again doing it like i would do in any other country i just i was like all right i'm gonna try to travel in the west bank in like the most tense time ever so i went to um a city called ramallah which i believe is uh the biggest city in the west bank um had like uh i did have one contact there um he was this guy who had he was palestinian he uh he had lived in israel briefly but i guess he was kind of like an illegal immigrant there so they like put him back in the west bank um and he had like a very like normal peaceful view on everything he was just like why can't we just have like an open border and like you know go back and forth and whatnot um he looked kind of like jesus interestingly enough yeah this is on video it is on video yeah he's in there video yeah and um yeah that he's got it okay so um yeah like uh he helped me out and then i had like it turned out this was a crazy idea at the time but i was like i want to go see the dead sea um but there was literally unsurprisingly zero tourists in the west bank at this point so there was like no buses running uh that one yeah it will shoot you with the checkpoint trapped in palestine your titles are hard as yeah all right so the guy that looked like jesus uh it should be like maybe middle uh halfway through it's like yeah at the start of it i'm in jerusalem is romano a place where they have settlements as well uh yeah that guy yeah they do yeah he actually lived in what was supposed to be a refugee camp but it actually looked like a neighborhood okay all right let's play him okay here now i really don't know but usually the scouts they said they train here and here it's a dorm these are dorms for the soccer players oh okay the soccer players are up here yeah like funerals of people who died have money like to pay for stuff so they can't do it again so you and medical staff are in here and then there's an image of the al-aqsa mosque very important in palestine so all the people here they were refugees after the 1948 war yes okay yeah they were explaining they are all from like villages around the haifa this is my house my parents house that's my grandparents house that's my sandwich shop yeah this sandwich shop is for my uh sandwich shop that's owned by my sister and my husband all right very poor economics in a place like this right yes it's pretty striking coming from uh like the israeli part uh where it's that is like fully a first world developed country like there's parts of tel aviv that look like new york basically um and yeah with that said i mean i try to be as honest as possible with my videos like in palestine it wasn't as bad as like some of the other middle eastern countries i had been to it's like it was definitely less developed than israel but not as bad as let's say like what i saw in iraq or right yeah like lack of running water and stuff like that yeah okay so this was a few weeks after october 7th literally literally yeah did you go to any of the settlements um like the israeli settlements in there uh no i did not have like a contact to do that and um i don't know if this is still going on but at that time what was kind of dangerous about it was uh there weren't really buses running between the different cities because the israelis had set up like checkpoints i think they're always there but like at this point in time they were super severe like literally palestinians would need like five to ten hours to like pass these checkpoints so you'd have to spend like an entire day so i get like get past them and so um the reason i titled the video like that like they will shoot you at the checkpoint trapped in palestine is because i ended up shooting you at the checkpoint in palestine because i ended up shooting you at the checkpoint trapped in palestine is because i ended up shooting you at the checkpoint trapped in palestine is because i ended up shooting you at the checkpoint trapped in palestine is because i ended up shooting you at the checkpoint trapped in palestine is because i ended up shooting you at the checkpoint trapped in palestine is because i ended up at this town near the dead sea and um this like really friendly guy he had a hotel it was closed because they had zero tourists he reopened the hotel for me like let me stay there um but i actually had uh a flight the next day my planning uh and i had to get back to tel aviv to take it and i was like i'm gonna miss this flight so they tried to help me like set up a plan so i could pass the checkpoint without getting shot because like apparently palestinians would walk up to these checkpoints and the israelis would just like unload on them so it was kind of like uh kind of a intense thing to do um but they managed to get like a taxi driver from jerusalem and the palestinians that live in jerusalem are the only ones that can go back and forth between the two places so why is that it's just a specific rule that they have i believe they come from east jerusalem which i guess is part from like a special jurisdiction um and they get like a special license plate that allows them to pass between the two israelis are actually not allowed to drive into palestine or i think that's the israeli government telling they can't do that and then palestinians obviously cannot go into israel proper so yeah they get that guy he he's like waiting on the other end of the checkpoint and i just like walk across it and uh thankfully they just they were definitely kind of curious why the hell i was doing that but uh obviously did not get shot you're walking across it like the bullets might be hitting me i had that thought in the back of my head were you yourself i was very nervous like what the interaction was going to be for sure the interaction yeah jesus christ yeah do you think that do you think that situation is solvable in our lifetime uh my honest opinion is no i agree yeah because the israelis their mentality is they have no no other home and so they consider like any kind of antagonism to israel is just like a fight for survival and so there and plus obviously the um the hasidic birth rate is like super high and like they're super conservative super yeah like pro like just fuck off palestinians and then uh you know the palestinians rightly also have their claims to the land and they're going to continue to want their land back and yeah the best we could hope for is i don't even know just like no more fighting yeah i don't think we'll see that i think a lot of it's a self-fulfilling prophecy thank you guys for checking out this clip if you haven't already subscribed 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