Camp Gagnon - Muslim Gangs, Haitian Voodoo, and Dinner With Taliban | ChrisMustList

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Go to https://buyraycon.com/campgagnon to get up to 15%off sitewide! Brought to you by Raycon. Christopher Arthur Hughes, or Chris Must List, as you may know him, is a Youtuber and journalist who has travelled to some of the most dangerous destinations in the world. Chris catalogues his journeys with rich storytelling from dangerous gangs to innocent bystanders. Chris has seen it all and is in the tent to tell us all about it. WELCOME TO CAMP. 🏕️ FREE NEWSLETTER HERE: https://camp.beehiiv.com/ S/o to our sponsors: Prizepicks and Raycon Prizepicks : https://prizepicks.onelink.me/ivHR/CAMP TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 Intro 1:36 Meet ChrisMustList 2:45 Getting Detained and Eating With Taliban 10:03 Learning English From Watching Friends 14:21 Things Christ Couldn’t Film + School Shooting 19:10 The Beauty of Afghanistan 20:41 Kindness of The Taliban 22:42 What Pushed Chris To Travel? 25:20 Trinidad Gang 33:21 Getting Arrested In Trinidad 42:31 Type of People In These Gangs 46:48 Haitian and Jamaican Gangs + Barbecue 50:22 Daily Life + Mud Cookies 52:54 Being Shown Taliban Videos 1:01:27 Haitian Voodoo + Visiting Death Room 1:05:27 Rastafari Religion 1:08:18 Best Food In Caribbean 1:11:02 Traveling To Ukraine 1:16:57 Unknown Aspects of Ukraine/Russia War 1:22:41 Similarities In Gang Wars and Ukraine/Russia War 1:25:34 Giving Water To a Whole Community 1:32:22 Places That Have Improved 1:36:02 Places Falling Apart In U.S. 1:42:03 Visiting a Tent City 1:46:05 Being Scammed In Foreign 1:54:01 Tattoos In El Salvador 1:55:26 The Dumbest Thing Chris Has Done 2:05:26 Future Travels + Balancing Family Life 2:07:31 Most Misunderstood Country + Travel Advice 2:12:06 Visiting Namibia + Himba Tribe 2:15:19 Drugs In Other Countries 2:17:06 Nastiest Food Chris Has Had 2:20:04 Safari Mark

Pulled out my phone. I really tested the limits. I hit record and I just band around the room to see if they would say anything. They didn't mind. So I looked at the camera and I said, you wouldn't believe this. I'm eating dinner with the Taliban. This is Chris. You probably know him from his YouTube channel, Chris Must List.

He is a journalist and filmmaker that goes around the world and puts himself into some of the most interesting and dangerous situations you can imagine. And today, he's in the tent to tell us about the time he had dinner with the Taliban. He also talks to me about the most dangerous experience he has. had with a Trinidadian gang. And with a very serious look, he went through his iPhone, pulled up a video, put it to me. He wanted to watch to see how I felt about what he was about to show him. He even goes in a detail describing the difference between all the Caribbean gangs in the

region and the different codes of conduct that all of them have. And of course, he even tells us what it was like living in a Ukrainian bunker on the front lines of the war with Russia. The man that was manning that bunker showed me lots of photos of bodies. Look how many people died just above the bunker. not a games. This is for your life. He describes the soldiers and their morale, what they believed they were fighting for, what kind of military experience they had, and what the most traumatizing and horrifying night in the bunker was. This episode is absolutely fascinating. Chris is a great

storyteller and has a good heart. He's a very, very interesting guy, so I hope you enjoyed this conversation half as much as I enjoyed having it. So without further ado, get close to the fire, roll one up, maybe grab a sandwich or something, whatever your style is, and welcome to camp. Yes, sir. Thank you so much for joining me, man. I really appreciate it. You have a fascinating YouTube channel that I love to watch, and you post a lot of really interesting content.

If anyone doesn't know, Christmas list, sounds like Christmas list. Yeah. It's a playoff the words. And it's a great channel. It's really, really interesting. You make a lot of really interesting content, specifically traveling all over the world, documenting your travels, going into, I guess, the most culturally novel or unique aspects of that country, that city that you're entering in, oftentimes relating to crime or gang activity in that area

and kind of showcasing the real and authentic nature of what goes on and who some of the people are that are involved and how it actually plays out. It's very much a real, like, you know, guerrilla, like, gonzo-style journalist approach of like, yo, I'm going to be with these people and actually show what it really is for better or for worse. And furthermore, not only just a criminal aspect, but you also illustrate just like interesting cultural components. Like, yo, what is it like being a white guy in Jamaica and breaking down what that cultural experience is like. And I just find the content really, really interesting. And I'm excited to get into it today, man.

Yeah, amazing. One of the first things I want to ask about it, I think a good place to start. Tell me how you got detained and ate dinner with the Taliban. Yeah, crazy story. First of all, Afghanistan is one an incredible place. A place I've always wanted to visit. And it's sort of like the timing is never right. You know what I mean?

Well, not the last 25 years. Right. And if you simply listen to mainstream media, there's never going to be a right time. Afghanistan is always very high on the do not go list. I went, you know, about two years ago, I googled the 10 most dangerous countries to visit. And I told my wife, like, this is my game plan this year to check them off one at a time. And Pakistan and Afghanistan are at the top of the list. list. So I might be one of the, there's no doubt there's a bit of craziness in me or I wouldn't

be doing what I do. But I don't do any preparation at all. Okay, I don't talk to anybody that's been to Afghanistan. I don't, I don't even know how to get into the country. I don't do any research. I fear that my mind might get tainted by what mainstreams media wants me to believe about a country. So I don't Google, is Afghanistan dangerous? I thought, let me just get to Afghanistan. And literally, that's what I did. I went to Pakistan. When in Pakistan, I asked people, how do I get to Afghanistan?

They said, go talk to this guy, get a visa, and go. Literally, no planning at all. But I get to Kabul and police officer stop. I say police officer. There, the police are Taliban. There's people just routinely walk in the streets looking for people to stop. for myself as a tourist, or let's say for you, if you're a local and you've shaved your beard,

that would be a reason to stop you. Or if there's music playing, or if you're a woman outside working, those are all reasons to be stopped in Afghanistan. And when you went, U.S. troops had already withdrawn. Right. Yes. So I've been in the West.

It's fully under Taliban control. 100%. Yes. So what I learned on day one is if I want to leave Kabul, I need to get permits, permission, granted from Taliban to, and go to Kandahar or to go to any of the outside cities.

So that process in itself is like a very difficult process. And there's nowhere that it's very strange. You know, in any other country you have a process. You do step one, two, three, four, five. It's because Taliban in control of Afghanistan is relatively new. They don't really have a process in play. So you have to go to different offices and ask different people, very few of them speak English,

how to get this permission. which normally takes three to five days. And that's to leave. No, to get permission to travel outside of the capital of Kabul. Okay, so you were able to go from Islamabad to Kabul? So from Peshawarwa in Pakistan to Kabul, no problem. Stopped many times along the way, mostly for photographs. Taliban wants to take photos with the white guy, the white tourist.

Oh, really? Yeah, over and over again. And even to get into that, at first, I found it amusing. I was posting on my social media, like with smiles and, choking, like, look at the Taliban, wants to take pictures with me. A lot of people got quite upset at that. You know, not everyone has a positive, for obvious reasons, right? They saw it as almost like a political cosign or something.

Exactly what they thought. Yeah. They thought I was being paid to go there and make them look like good people. And there's a very negative history with the Taliban. No. Right. Me, when I travel the world, I have to show what I see. Right.

I can't go back in time. I can't speak on behalf of Taliban over the last 10 years. I got to show you what I can see today. And to me, they were nice to me along the way when I was there. So once these permits are granted, you get this big, thick booklet of individual handwritten permits that would allow me on certain days to be in certain places in the country. And are they asking what the purpose of your travelers? YouTube is not too like, I don't know how to put it.

It's not like there are thousands of YouTubers going. So I just say to film, to photograph. And that's enough reason to allow me to do this. You basically say you're a journalist. Yeah, not really a journalist because I think then the process might be something different. So you say I'm here to document the country. Yeah, photography. You know, my camera setup is like, I don't look like a journalist.

Like this is all I carry with me, right? So it's very simple. But now because of the newness, if that's a word, of the Taliban and sort of the lack of experience, every step along the way, I'm detained by Taliban. So if I'm in a restaurant in Taliban comes in, they see me, they're grabbing me, I'm going in the back of their car, and we're going to, I don't know, for a lack of a better term, the police station. Every day. Every day. And if you speak to any other YouTubers or people that have gone through this, most of them cut their trip short. It's intense. It's stressful. You don't know if you're

going to be released or not. I think I have a very high threshold of stress. I just try to smile it off, but it is exhausting by the end of every day. Because when they hold you, what they're doing is they're looking through handwritten documents, and now they're going to try to verify it. And you might be 500 miles away from the person that originally signed, and that person might be off now, and there's no emails or computers or anything. So I mean, the process itself is, like when you're detained, you're put in a room with lots of Taliban, a lot of guns. You don't speak the same language as they do while they verify the documents that are not in English. So you don't even know what they say. Yeah. And then hopefully you're granted permission

to continue on without being detained or arrested. And that's the process every single day. Wow. So there was one on our way to Kandahar. We were stopped, myself in the translator. And after the whole process, very stressful process, they said, you can go. And jokingly, I said, like, well, aren't you going to give us some dinner as well? Because they were all eating dinner. And of course, they brought out food and said, yes, eat, eat. They all stood around the room watching me eat. And I said, everybody eat, eat. And the funny thing is, I pulled out my phone and I really tested the limits. I hit record and I just like panned around the room to see if they would say anything. And they didn't mind. So I looked at the camera and I said,

you wouldn't believe this. I'm eating dinner with the Taliban. And I panned across the room and I put my phone down. And after dinner, they said, if you want to stay for the night, you can sleep on the floor. I just want to get out of there. I'm like, thanks, but no thanks. Wow.

And they escorted us to the closest place to sleep for the night. And how did you find a translator? Just, it's crazy because I tried to do it the traditional route. Like, talk to the tourist board there, which they do have. I was worried about working with people. people that are too close to the government. Out of fear, I want to be able to travel the authentic way. I want to

film what I want to film. Right. You know, there are some countries that it's mandatory for you to travel with a government tour guide. North Korea does this. North Korea, Syria, Somalia, and it's not authentic. They're telling you exactly what you can film, what you can't film. So I wanted to find somebody

that just spoke English. And I was able to meet a gentleman from the, he's a Hazara, which is like... It's weird that they, there's classes to people in Afghanistan, Pashtun being the biggest, which are the Taliban in their background. And like lower on the fourth level, there's the Hazara. And I met somebody from the Hazara background that spoke perfect English with a New York accent. And I was the first tourist he's ever met.

How did he speak English from film and TV? From film, watching friends. This is so funny. We went to Moscow in 2019. And I was stunned at how many people I met that spoke perfect English. Yeah. And it was like, like no, like an American accent. Yes.

And I was like, oh, where did you study? And they'd be like, I've never left Moscow. Yeah. It's like, what? And they're like, yeah, we've never left Russia. I just watched friends. I watched the office a little. And I learned how to speak English with an American accent.

Isn't it crazy? Because this gentleman had never even spoken to anybody in English before me. What? There's nobody to speak English to. Not even like on the phone. No, there's no one to talk to. So I was the first, and if you watch my videos, my biggest video I ever filmed was 10 million views in Afghanistan. My translator, he speaks better than I speak.

He speaks like perfectly. And if you read the comments, they're all so impressed. And I'm the first person he's ever had a conversation with. Yeah, I mean, it's an insane thing that this guy is just there. And you're like, oh, do you speak English? And he's like, I don't know. Maybe I do. Like, just let's test me out.

Perfect English. but he had a fear that I didn't have. See, when I come to Afghanistan, I can basically do as I please and leave. But he's, even though a stranger I met on the street, he represents me. So if I publish something against what the Taliban stands for, whether it be while I'm in Afghanistan or thereafter,

even if it's being negatively about the Taliban, the repercussions are handed down to him. Yeah, because you go back to Canada and you never have to go back to Afghanistan, but this guy lives there, and he was the, liaison that showed you all the stuff the Taliban didn't want you to see, et cetera. Not a guide.

Right. He was an English teacher. But since Taliban, so he was teaching children in Afghanistan, English. Imagine this, again, a man that's never had an English conversation with somebody that speaks English, teaching the children of Afghanistan. But what had happened is when Taliban took over, they eliminated all English from Afghanistan. Oh, wow. So since the U.S. left, he has been jobless. So me coming in and finding him at the right time,

just bonding in a friendly manner that we enjoyed each other's presence. He told me he never wants to do it again, the stress. You know, he lived his whole life trying his best to avoid any confrontation or communication with Taliban. Yeah. Right. So he doesn't want to talk with them. He doesn't want to stay away.

And now every day, he's the one translating. and in his mind all he's thinking about is the repercussions. Was there anything that you didn't want to publish because you felt like it would reflect negatively on him? So there were things I didn't film on purpose. Interesting. Because at any point, they could take my camera, look through my camera, very similar to North Korea.

You know, you know what the limits are. You know the time that you can push the limits. There's certain countries that I would never, no matter what, put the life, of a stranger or a friend or a guide or a translator in danger for me to view video something. If it's me by myself, I have a different set of rules. When it's me filming with somebody else,

those rules are very strict to what the country's laws are. Wow. Because I would never be able to live with myself knowing that somebody's life has been taken or he's imprisoned because of my stupidity. And I imagine most countries you go to typically with an authoritarian sort of guy, governmental structure, you're going to have to turn the camera off at certain points.

100%. Now, not speaking with any specificity either to this situation or any other situation, but can you share any of the times you turn the camera off and what things you didn't film without putting a regard to a specific country or place? Well, and the gentleman himself that the translator called me about two weeks ago, we hadn't spoken since the videos. And he's like, Chris, I live in Toronto now. I'm in Toronto.

So he's safe and out of the country, which is amazing. But, you know, when Taliban took rule in Afghanistan, they started changing the rules back pretty rapidly. Females are not allowed to work. Music is removed completely. There's no celebration at all. So no birthday celebrations, no anniversary, no wedding celebrations. And no females are not allowed to go to school. So the Hazara neighborhood went against the Taliban and let the girls continue to go to school.

And the way it worked in the classroom itself is like females, girls towards the front. So the first two or three rows are girls, then the boys are in the back. And what happened is somebody walked in the school and killed all the girls in the school. Probably two or three weeks before I was there. What? So like shot, and you don't hear about this. in this part of the world, right? But there, I believe it was 60 plus

some boys die too just from being shot. And then when you say someone did this, is this someone that is like state sanctioned or was this just a rogue psychopath? I don't, I want to speak factually. I don't know. Mm-hmm.

I don't know. Do you know if that person was penalized for what they did? I believe they committed suicide. And it might have been more than one person. What the fuck? So I went to the school. to film the school.

Three weeks later. Yeah, so I was, like, I had access I could get inside the school through, you know, finding the right people and et cetera. People wanted the world to know. But I got detained. I don't know. Arrested sounds bad.

But I don't know. What's the difference between arrested and detained really and truly? You know, I was held by Taliban for going to the school. They don't use handcuffs, so I wasn't read my rights, but I was brought into

a station and yell at. And they took my memory card. What rights they would reach away. And they said, don't film here again or it could be worse. That was a time when I knew I could, I could have come in with more secrecy and filmed it if I wanted to. But they clearly, through my translator, told me the repercussions, won't be handed down to me.

They'll be handed down to the gentleman that was translating. So that's one instance in which morally, I think as a journalist, that's a journalist, that, and they're a journalist that shoot a lot more in-depth content than me. It's the fight, the moral fight between letting the world know and understanding that there are repercussions to what you film. You are responsible for what you film. Yeah. Wow.

I mean, that's heavy. Did you feel like, oh, I have a moral obligation to share this story and document this? Or is there a point where you're just like, look, there's fucked up shit that happens and I'm not going to die on this hill. and I'm just going to keep them moving. But going back to that exact instance, and I think it's instant by instance, all I was thinking about was my guide

that I could not be held responsible. Yeah. And I didn't want, I don't want that. And the truth is if I would have published it in whether something happened or not to my guide, there's going to be a large percentage of people online that say, you're only doing this for reviews anyway. Right?

Not really understanding that I believe the world should know the truth. whether it's good, bad, or ugly. And I guess that's, because I follow those rules, I guess that's what gets me in trouble more times than maybe the average person with the camera. And how long do you stay in Afghanistan on that trip? Only about two weeks. Two weeks is a decent amount of time.

And I spent my birthday there. I stayed in a Chinese hotel, which, who would have thought that in downtown capital, Kabul, a lot of the hotels are in Chinese. So, like, nobody speaks English. Everything's Chinese. But I'd say two to three weeks after I was there, a terrorist attack on the hotel,

and the hotel imploded like it was detonated and it's gone. What? So I won't say I'm lucky. I'm glad I only spent two weeks. I believe, like, things happened for a reason. Afghanistan is a very touchy subject because you just don't know when things are going to turn south. What was the most beautiful part of Afghanistan?

The people. The people are beautiful people. In more what? Like physically and they're so unique. You know, when you think of that national geographic cover with the girl, the beautiful girl with the green eyes, right? That's a typical, like a nomad Afghanian, like, you know, nomad, no mailing address, somebody that just, you know, moves with the cattle. The kindness of the average Afghani is something I, I wish I could show better. because I think Afghans get a bad rep

because of a very small percentage of them. And I think that's part of the reason why I love doing what I do. It's like, let's break every stereotype. Iraq, Syria, you know, nice people, not terrorists, really nice people, kind people that have very little and they're willing to give you what they have.

But Afghanistan from a landscape, if you're into landscape and, like, you know, the views are, are what people like, what people like myself, adventure seekers, travel for, you know, the most picturesque and sort of untouched territory. And, you know, you can go from the warm weather and summer in Afghanistan to the very cold and frigid

and snow-filled Afghanistan, which I don't think most people knew about Afghanistan. So, I mean, all in all, it's like a dream come true for somebody that seeks adventure. like myself. Now, you had mentioned that the Taliban were nice to you.

Yes. And not to obviously paint some type of like political endorsement in any capacity, but I'm curious, what were some of the specific instances

where you saw kindness behind, like maybe these young Taliban soldiers that got wrapped up into this political regime? So tough. You know, what most people don't know

is when you're in one of these offices for Taliban, children don't go to school. So, like, from birth, Taliban's Taliban. Okay, if you're a Pashtun and your father's Taliban, you're going to be Taliban. So you'll have children, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 running around the office.

Leader from the Taliban will say, here's a document, the child will run it down to the next person. You're not just gifted the job of a Taliban. You know your whole life. You're going to be a Taliban. Dynasty. Right. They don't have the kindness of, let's say a Canadian or American.

They weren't born with the etiquette that we were born, with. I understand they have an agenda, right? They want to show the world that they're managing their country well. So they're going to treat me in a way that they might not treat one of their own residents. I don't know if you watch like true crime documentaries. I'm addicted. And I'll often see the interviewer say about the serial killer they're talking to. They're like, wow, if this guy was on the street, we'd be good friends. Yeah, he's the nicest guy. I enjoyed his presence. But that doesn't speak for what he's done. Right. You're getting played because he has a a perverse interest to seduce you.

I don't know if you're getting played or not, but it could be. But I mean, they treated me well. I wasn't going to push my luck with them. Of course. I'm not going to challenge them. But the only stressful part about Afghanistan for me, and I want to go back,

I feel like I'm a better traveler now than a year and a half ago when I was there is the consistently being held in detained. Yeah. That's the stressful part. Yeah, I can imagine. And I want to talk about other places you've gone to, you know, the Caribbean in Haiti, Trinidad, your detainment there, as well as other parts of, you know, like Eastern Africa. But I'm curious, how did you start in this line of work?

And what interested you initially and how are you able to sustain this, traveling around the world and documenting different people and different cultures? Yeah, I believe I was born. I was born maybe a little bit of, different. I never learned well. I didn't do well in school. I didn't, I wasn't interest in school, but I always wanted to learn. I'm not good at reading books. I have no interest at all. I don't think I've read a book in my life, like the entirety of a book, no. But doing things and touching things. And I always, even as a child, aspired to go to the Egyptian pyramids and touch them.

That's the way I learned best. So my whole life, even when I had no money in a really poor warehouse job, I would save money and travel to these places I dreamt about in order to learn and to experience cultures and et cetera. And, you know, once you got the 50 most traveled two countries done, if you're somebody like me, you're like, what can I, I want to push the limits a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. I've been on YouTube only three years doing this, which is a very small amount of time. But I've been traveling, you know, I'm 47 as of a couple days ago, since I was 19, I've been traveling with a camera, but just I would keep it for myself. I was traveling in the same manner. I guess how do I keep it going? It's like for me,

I have a dream in my lifetime is to see every country in the world. And it's more than a dream. It's an obsession. And being what some people call a YouTuber now, sort of, it's added to the fire because when somebody watches my videos and leaves a comment and says like Chris never in my wildest dreams did I think I could see the inside of a slum in Haiti and you've brought you shine the light on what the problem is there and they thank me for it I'm like wow you know what initially this goal of seeing every country in the world was like for me it was 100% selfish but now I'm like I got a team of like almost 400,000 people right now. now that are following me on these journeys.

And yeah, it definitely helps fund my trips to answer the question as how do I continue doing it. And it continually motivates me just to keep pushing forward. Now, you came onto my radar because of this Trinidad situation. That was the first time I'd heard of you. And I basically read, you know, YouTuber gets detained in Trinidad.

And I was like, oh, what the fuck? There's some guy that went down to do a prank with, like, Trinidad and, you know, trinity gang members. And then I realized your content was not that. Yeah. So I'm curious what happened in Trinidad, take me through the whole process and just kind of the main beats and how you ended up getting detained and for what reason. Yeah.

So again, when I go to a country, I do no prior research at all. I get to Trinidad. It was my country like 128 because people often ask me like, why did I choose Trinidad? Well, it was country 128. It's on the list. Right. That's exactly what it is. It was on the list.

And I got there the first day I always just walk and talk. is pretty simple. And in my first video, I walk and I walk into a gang territory. And they're like, you know, how dangerous it is here. And I said, no, because I didn't know and I didn't understand. But I was educated firsthand at how the gangs work there. They're by numbers. So you're like, there's gang six, seven, eight, nine.

Neither you're Rasta, like Rastafarian or you're a Muslim. Those are the sort of, I don't know, the conflicting gangs. So after the first day of getting into what most we consider one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in Trinidad, and for those that don't know, Trinidad is like top five or ten, most years higher as most murderous countries in the world per capita. After the first day, I went home and I'm like, look, if I'm going to do this thoroughly, I'm going to go into the 10 worst gang territories and really infiltrate them sounds bad,

but that was my goal. to get in and get a voice to the people that don't often get heard. The murder rate is ridiculously high. Everybody that I met in Trinidad seems so nice and kind, like what the hell is going on in this country to cause this? Because there's murders in other countries like Jamaica.

I go there all the time. But there's rules there, right? So if you're my enemy in Jamaica and you owe me money or you've created harm to my family, and I see you out at a restaurant, and you're with your family, I can't touch you. I don't have the permission to hurt you.

I need to wait for the next chance that I get. And that's a code that's respected amongst all Jamaica. 100%, right? So in Jamaica, there's donns. Dons are the leader, the gang leader for each community. The Don dictates what the rules are. Right? So that's an unbreakable rule.

Dan's are the gang leaders in Trinidad. They're called Dan's. There's no rules. So if I see you and you have your pregnant wife, your grandma, your daughter, and you owe me money, you're all dead. And the sad thing is,

this is what happens on a daily, and I mean a daily basis in Trinidad. A lot of grandma is being killed. I couldn't find you, so I'll kill your grandmother. And I'll kill your daughter. And when I was there in Maruga, a five-year-old was killed with the father walking out of the store

because they wouldn't pay a very small fee to the gang. So it's beyond understanding for me. So when I went into the community, is the questions I asked is like, how do we stop this? How do we stop what's going on? Because I haven't seen anywhere in the world like this. And people were honest with me.

A lot of them said we're unhappy with the government or A, B, and C, there's no other option. We have no money. We have, everybody giving you an excuse. I am not on the side of the criminal. Never. I hope and believe that 99.9% of the time you can choose a better life.

You've chosen. in the wrong way. I'm not on your side. I might smile when I'm interviewing, but I'm not on your side. I'm on the side of peace. So when I ask these gang members or community members,

like what do we do to bring peace, I publish what they say. Publish meaning I put the video together and I upload the video. In Trinidad, for example, after I did the 10 biggest gang, some of them have guns. I have no doubt I'm interviewing killers.

I'm no doubt. Some of them have masks. Some of them told me they've killed people. And I'm uploading the video. the government didn't like that. That repetitively, repetitively over and over and over again, these gang members are saying it's the government's fault for the violence in the country.

So now, you know, Trinidad, although very murderous, and they have local newspapers, they have TV shows, they talk about the murder every day of the week. Front page of the newspaper is a child's face murdered every day. But that's very local circulation. You have somebody like me that comes in with an audience from around the world, you know, I'm getting six, seven million views a month. Now they're embarrassed.

And you're uploading this from Trinidad. From Trinidad. So you're editing and uploading. Same day. Yeah. And, you know, I understand the risk, but I also understand that's what gives me the opportunity to get in these communities. They see that I went into other communities and they allow me that access, right?

I become sort of a local, I don't know, I don't want to say celebrity, but people recognize my face. Interesting. So by posting one video, the next day or two days later. So if I show up. So on my grabbing me, be like, oh, I saw your video. Right. Let me do my video and explain da, da, da, da, da, da.

Right. And often the cases, like I'm talking to, even in the same video, I'm talking to people that are killing each other. Rival gangs. Rival gang in the same video. And they both respect me. They both know that I'm speaking to each other. Right.

But they know that I'm not on anyone's side. I'm just documenting. Mm-hmm. So after doing this and filming these videos, and them getting millions of views combined, the government came in and arrested me. They came in and they hit me with a long list of charges, all gang-related, saying I'm a gang member.

I'm profiting from gangs. I don't remember the exact wording, so I don't want to be. But I had four gang-related charges. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick, because if you're listening to me right now on earbuds, there's a good chance you pay.

too much unless you're using Raycons. That's right. I'm going to be completely honest with you. I've used competitors' earbuds for the longest time, probably 10 years, you know? And I've always been on the competitors' product. And then I got these Raycons like a week ago. I'm going to be honest, I put them in. I was very skeptical. I was like, I've been using these for so long. I put these in. I was shocked at how good they were. Take me, for example, I just had a kid, right? He cries all time, but when I put in my racons with the active noise cancellation feature, I don't hear them at all. I can rock them to sleep. I'm the best dad that I can be. And my baby gets to play with the case. It's a beautiful blue sleek case. It feels nice in your hands. And with the noise cancellation,

I don't hear a thing. It's awesome. And here's the biggest issue with the competitor's products or with any earbuds, you lose them all the time. You drop them, one who goes under the couch, you're at the gym. One of them flies in the girls' bathroom. You can't go in there. So you're losing earbuds all the time, but with Raycon, they're easy to replace. The quality is amazing. You can listen to everything. You're able to do everything wireless. They are completely wireless. They fit in your ear super, super well. You can work out with them. You can wear them around on the plane while you're traveling, and you can replace them with the click of a button and not break the bank. I mean, let me put it this way. Even if you have to replace your Raycon earbuds three times, let's see you're that

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Let's get back to the show. So they're saying, I'm in a gang, right? So, and another charge of working without a work permit or without a work visa, which is a very serious charge in Trinidad. It's not like a slap on the wrist. So I went through 48 hours of like interrogation and they realized that they couldn't stick me with any of those charges. It's ridiculous. I'm obviously not in a gang. What does the interrogation look like?

Three or four police asking me thousands, tens of thousands of questions, watching every, video that I uploaded and saying like, who is that? What's their name? How many people have they harmed? What's their home address? My answers are like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Like, you and I just met for the first time 10 minutes ago. Somebody said, where do you live? I have no idea. I don't know anything about you. Yeah. I don't know how many people you've hurt, right? So it's ridiculous. But while this is happening, and I'm being questioned, I'm also the outside of the most popular man in the country. But they're trying, the government, as well as the arrest, is really trying to tarnish my name.

So the front page of the newspaper is like Chris is working with the police to, to like find all of the gang members featured in his videos, right, which is not factual. But now they're putting you at risk. But they're putting very, very purposeful, right, and putting me at risk. So this is in the newspaper. This guy's a Fed. He's an informant. 100%.

So that, there was already, so now I'm in. So from the questioning, I go to jail. And now I got to worry about what's being said in the media, which is unfactual. Oh, Chris is on tour. The title was of the newspapers. Like, Chris is on tour with the police. And they actually, like, listed Movant in Second Caledonia as a location, because that's the location in which they show me the most guns.

So they purposely went out there. I heard they arrested people in the newspaper. They said, I was there. I was not there. They retracted the statement because of threatening civil suits the next day, but it was like a little retraction paragraph in the middle of a newspaper that no one's going to see. Right?

So now I got to worry about, okay, I'm going to jail, and I got to deal with the repercussions of these false stories. So what happened is they couldn't charge me with any gang-related charges. So they came to me and they arrested me under something called sedition. And they gave me a charge, like, they give you a document and they said, this is your charge. And I looked at this word sedition, and I'm like, I don't know what this. I have no idea what this is. I'm trying to in my mind look and imagine.

It sounds not that bad. So the guy fingerprinting me, I'm like, what is sedition? Is it bad? He's like, Chris, this is really bad. It's like there's murder. There's attempted murder. There's sedition. Like, you're facing three to five years in jail

for what you did. I spent the next seven days in confinement at a police station. The worst, like, the worst gang area police station is where they put me, like where all the gangsters are. Spent seven days and I got bail

and they allowed me to get out after seven days. I'm still fighting this, so I'm out on bail right now. I've had to return to Trinidad, which a lot of people don't understand. They ask me like, Chris, why go back? You know, just leave the country, just don't go back. But Canada, where I'm from, has a treaty and they will definitely export me back to jail

if I miss court. Wow. And worse than that, I'm a world traveler. I don't want to have to worry about being in a country one day and just be picked up. There's extradition from this country or this country. And I know I'm not guilty. So just to go into it, like, sedition itself is they have to prove that I came to the country

with the intention to sort of overturn the government, to create riots and overturn the government, which is just so ridiculous. If you watch my videos, I'm asking for peace. How do we bring peace to the community? So I know I'm innocent, but having two to five years weighing over my head in jail is not a fun thing. Wow. And that was just the beginning of my nightmare. To be honest, you know, I was held in the country for another month.

They wouldn't allow me to leave. They took my passport. And during those times where I'm staying is being published in the newspaper, like Christmas list is at so-and-so address and cannot leave that address. So anybody that believed in the false narrative, the newspapers, could find me pretty easily, you know, nightmares. And they finally allow me to leave. And they said, you're allowed to leave for like two weeks, but then you have to come back for court.

So I went home to my family. And then I had to return two weeks later, resubmit my passport, and go through the whole process again. And I guess that's when the realization of, like, it's not ending anytime soon. You know, I was hit again, I rested again, this time for money laundering that is the charge. I don't know how they came up with this,

but they charged me with money laundering. Brought me in again for questioning, back to jail again, different jail. And then when that didn't stick, there is no evidence of that. Now they hit me with deportation, which is a different jail, a different day. So I get released and then I'm arrested two days later again.

And deportation is something that nobody wants on the record. And deportation doesn't mean like, I'm going to walk you to the airport and send you home. It means you're going to be in a migrant jail for weeks or months until we send you home. It's not something like instant. So in and out of jail, it's been a nightmare. My love for Trinidad as a whole has not changed. The people are incredible.

And when I walk down the street of Trinidad, they treat me as almost like a prophet. Like you came to show the world what's really happening here. Because this has been a secret. We need a voice. And we need, something has to be done. Because there's no reason any country that size should be having 10, 15, 20 murders a day. No one's safe. Yeah.

And then furthermore, arresting the people that are discussing it and talking about it and not necessarily the people that are actually perpetrating it. You know, of all the, you know, gang affiliated places that you've traveled in your time, this is the only one that has arrested you for the reason of public. their sort of malevolence or like malfeasance within the country. 100%, which is a bad look for a nation to be suppressing freedom of press. So I'm curious, there must be trinity politicians that see what you're doing and that support your mission and that are working to, you know, basically try to stop this entire thing. Have there been high-ranking trinity officials that have spoken to you? Yeah, well, not spoken, spoken to me directly, yes,

and spoken like on media. Like, why is he being arrested? You know, if you don't like the look of yourself and a reflection, don't break the mirror, right? Fix yourself. And many times, like, I'm on the front page of every newspaper for months and months and months, like, why are we shooting the messenger? Right, Chris came with no ill intent.

I didn't come just to get views. I stayed for months. And I can return to film. And for those that have never seen my channel, I'm not only filming gangs. I'm doing a lot of cultural videos and I'm doing peace walks. And I'm trying to make peace.

Even as an outsider, I know I'm not overly intelligent, but I have the gift to insert myself in places that the police obviously can't get to. So why not take the information and try to fix the problem? And I don't think fixing the problem means going and arresting everyone.

that's a very like a bandied over a real wound, right, fix the problem. Like, so that a year from now, two years from now, there's something actually being done. What are the systems of inequality that are leading to this type of behavior and how do we fix that? Right. Like what needs to be done? Is it education, you know, trying to actually get it from its root and not just kind of, oh, we'll arrest this gang leader so that in six months his brother will take the role and become a new gang leader and, you know, the cycle. It's even worse than that.

They went after people in my video to arrest them only to say, look, we arrested three people from Chris's video. You know, not because they wanted criminals off the street because they wanted to make sure gang members feel uncomfortable talking to people like me with a camera. Really messed up way to think about it, no? Like, fix yourself. It shoots themselves in the foot. Like they, if they wanted to use the content, again, not that you weren't informant, but if they wanted to use the content as a way to crack down on crime, they're basically now telling. all the criminals, hey, don't talk to people. Right.

Don't snitch on yourselves. It's like, it's from their perspective, it makes no sense. Well, it proves the fact that they're not looking at ways to improve the peace in their country. Yeah. If they were, they would be using this from a positive standpoint to make changes. Yeah. Now, the nature of the videos, did you post them and are they still up? Yeah, they're all up.

Oh, wow. And the type of, like, gang activity that happens in Trinidad, what is the nature of, what is the nature of it. Is it rackets? Is there a drug component? Yeah, there's definitely drugs. I don't talk about business, like the business of gangs. Number one reason, nobody will tell me. I don't, I come in as an outsider and I ask them very basic questions. They're not going to tell me about how they make money or

where they get the drug supply. We can put two and two together. Trinidad is like eight kilometers or eight miles away from Venezuela and Colombia is right there. So, you know, there's definitely drugs coming in from South America, but like how does it get there or like what percentage and like who does? I don't know any of that stuff. They're not going to give me that information and I don't want that information, right? I don't want to be responsible for that information.

So I don't know, but like from the outsider looking in, how do gangs they rob, they steal, you know, they tax businesses, like give me a percentage of the money that you're going to make extort. kidnapping is very popular in Trinidad, and there's definitely drugs in arms as well. I guess not unlike any other country that's dealing with the murder problem that they're currently having.

And are these Trinidadian gangs the most dangerous that you've experienced and that you've sort of gravitated with? I don't think so. Like some of them, when I look in their eyes, I see real evil, like real evil. I saw one guy show me a video clip on the news and said, that's me.

Like, that's me. And they're talking about five people were murdered. So there's, there's evil people there. But I also see a lot of childish men, you know, like, not too far gone that they can't change. Do you know what I mean? Maybe 20 years old. Still with like a child mentality, maybe they didn't have a proper father or upbringing that if given the right, direction or like the right motivation or the right father figure, they're not too far gone

that they can't change. I find like USA here, the gangsters are gone. Like they're far gone, no rules. This feels like a lot more dangerous when I meet a gangster in the USA, which I film as well. So I don't think they're that bad in Trinidad, but their record will speak otherwise because how many people are dying? You can't be a nice person and you're killing a whole family. Right. So there's definitely something wrong. And did you speak with Trini citizens about what their perspective on the gang problem is? Yeah.

And what did they say? Everyone will admit there's a problem. And a lot of people blame. They feel like they're hostage by it. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people blame the government, the lack of opportunity. And that if you have an opportunity to flip drugs or to extort a business, people will go downriver

to whatever the easiest way to make money. You know what? They're here in the USA, if you go to a problem. a high school football game. You'll see scouts. You'll see an audience. People are looking at you, even from a young age for your talent, right? In Trinidad, in the hoods of Trinidad, you're being scouted from a young age, right? Like, you might be six years old and have no shoes and you pass by a truck dealer and he says, here, let me give you three pair of shoes, but there might be a time where I need you to do something simple. And that's how it starts. Be a lookout over here, run this little

bag to that guy over there. And your parents might need the money. And your parents might even be a part of this whole thing. And maybe your uncle was a drug runner. And, you know, for somebody like myself from the outside world, I'll never really understand nor digest how a parents could welcome their child into crime. But who am I to speak about this?

There are people that have no food to eat, right? Yeah, desperate people do desperate things. And it's not an excuse. I never want to seem like I'm siding with the criminal. But until you've walked a mile in their shoes, it's very hard for me to speak about something that I never went a meal with, like a day without a meal growing up. Yeah.

And had I not had food on my plate, maybe I would be the same kind of child that says yes. Yeah. To new shoes, right? Yeah, absolutely. Now, I'm curious, you kind of mentioned that the Jamaican gangs and the Haitian gangs are different than the trinity gangs. And obviously, there's, like, kind of more lawlessness and there's less of like a code of honor amongst the trinity gangs.

But I'm curious, pivoting to some of the other, like, Caribbean. criminal cultures, how do you find that Haiti and Jamaica differ in other ways? Yeah, Haiti's just a mess right now. There's no rules at all. Like, Haiti as a whole is by far the worst I've seen. When was the last time you were there? It's probably been a year and a half. Okay.

I'm thinking about returning very soon, maybe in the coming days. And that's since the president was left. So I went when the president was there. Okay. The current president was assassinated, and they had a stand-in president, but right now there's no leadership at all. He's left.

Wow. And Barbecue, as being like the forefront, the biggest name when it comes to gang members in the Caribbean, he's the man that everybody talks about. And for anyone unfamiliar with this guy, could you explain who Barbecue is and what his role is in the country? He was a prior police, like, sergeant,

or one of the head officials that stepped down as a police officer and became a gang leader openly. He has social media. He talks about being a leader. He's the one that came on the news and said, I'm going to give the president of Haiti 24 hours to leave before we kill you and your family. He's not the only gang member.

There are a lot of gangs against barbecue in his gang. Like other factions that are trying to take him out. Right. At all times. But he is the name. When you think about the evilest gangster, killer and whatever you could think of, he is the guy. And even in Trinidad, there's music about him.

Like, there's a song called Barbecue Badness. Like, he's actually inspiring gangsters in other parts of the Caribbean to become more devilish gangsters. Wow. And, you know, he himself, again, similar to the Taliban, he does some very poetic interviews with the BBC or other big name brand media. where he looks and sounds very professional, almost like he is a martyr,

or willing to be a martyr for his country. But the reality is a lot of people are dying. Somebody has to be held responsible. So right now what's happening in Haiti is just so sad, because again, Haitians are very nice people. The country is beautiful. Like Dominican Republic being attached to Haiti shows you what the possibilities are for tourism,

but Haiti is just going through hell right. And now when you were there, did you see the writing on the wall? Were people concerned about this? Yeah, it was really bad. It was really bad. What was the- I was there was like, I think there were 200 murders in the one week in just the capital. So it was like, you know, I'm from Toronto.

You know, we have 3 million people in Toronto. We get like 50 murders a year. Yeah. And that's a big number. I think New York is like 400 murders a year, something like that. So to imagine in a week with a, yeah. And that's it only in the capital, right? Right?

Yeah, this is a small city in a small country. That is a huge percentage of the population getting killed in one week. Yeah, walking through the capital, gunshots every few minutes. Like, you're in a war. I went to Ukraine during the war. Very similar.

Like, you're hearing gunshots consistently. It's never ending. Are people living life as normal? No. A lot of people have abandoned their homes because it's just stray bullets. Right. You know, in my video, one woman showed me

how she hides under the bed every night with eight children, eight of her children. So they're not all infant, but they're eight of her children. And the ground is mud and it's a metal. You know, it's about this size room. And many people from the community left. But even to leave, you have to go, you have to take one path out and that path puts you through other gang territories.

So even you leaving the neighborhood, you could die. There's a pretty good chance. Just going to a different town. Right. There's a pretty good chance. Somebody in your, if you go 80, you're not all going to make it. So people ask, like, why don't they leave? Why don't, like, they don't have anything.

And they don't have anywhere to go. So this woman and herself, to survive for the community, she's making mud cookies. Right? She's getting mud, putting some salt and some butter, some called Maggie, like a little spice in a big mud, plastic container and then putting it out to dry under the sun and making cookies. And that's how they're surviving.

Because they can't travel. People say, why don't they get this and go to the store? There's not, people are delusional, right? Like this is a war where in this community, it's called city of the sun, like city du Soleil. Even though the ocean is 100 meters away, if you go to the ocean, you're going to be killed. You cannot go to the ocean. You can't go fishing. So you work with what you got.

What they got is mud. Did you try one? I tried one and I was violently ill. I tried a bite. I knew I was going in there to eat one. I'm like, if they're eating it, I'm going to eat it. And I was violently ill for like three or four days. Because the water is just like sewage water.

It's not like it's filtered or boiled or... Of course. Or nothing. And this is what they live on. Wow. So like that video in particular, when I read the comments, they're like, people around the world said,

I will never be ungrateful again. Because I have a whole video about how this woman makes mud cookies. And she hides under her bed. And the things that we never have to worry about, she worries about every minute of every day. And I'm a parent, and I know my biggest responsibility in my life are my three kids.

And to imagine she's responsible for eight kids. In a war zone. In a war zone. I'll tell you a story I've never told in like a conversation like this, right? I don't pay gangs to enter. I never will. I don't feel comfortable as a man to say,

I'm going to give a criminal money in order to hear their story because one of the things people ask me is like, how much did you pay in Trinidad to get in the gang? I don't pay money, period. I went to the city of Sanagan, city of Douceolay. It was the saddest place I've ever seen.

The poor... So if you Google, it's the poorest slums in the Western Hemisphere. where like nobody works and there's no money. There's a gang that runs that neighborhood and my translator brought me in to meet the gang. I need to ask for permission to enter. You can't enter any other way.

You can't just randomly walk in. They'll kill you, right? So he sits me down and we're in a place about half the size of this room. It's like the gang convenience store. Like there's beer, there's pop. There's a cooler, two coolers with like refreshments for the gang only.

Nothing is for sale. He sits me inside and there's like people all around the room because I'm like the crazy white guy. And I'm already feeling intimidated. But I can never show that. I need to show my strength, my courage. So I'm looking around telling my translator. I'm trying to make a joke out of it. Like you want to fit more people in the room?

They're all like on the cooler looking at me very serious. So the boss sits there to my translator and says, why do you want to come here? And I said, I heard, you know, it's a very scary place. and I want to see with my own eyes. I want to show the world what happens here on a daily basis. And he's like, well, how much money are you giving me today? And my mind is like, I'm never going to give money. But at that time, with my surroundings, I gave him, I said, I have $50 US.

So my secret, I normally carry $50 to $100 on my pocket. And I always have $100 US note in my shoe, my right shoe, the bottom of my sock. It's always like, it only comes out. It's like life or death. that comes out. So even though I had that money there, he's like, $50 all you brought? I'm like, yes, sir, I'm sorry, I respect you,

but I don't pay gang members. I'm risking my life. I will give you the $50. And he wouldn't take it at first. And with a very serious look, he went through his iPhone, he had the newest iPhone, newer than me. He went through and pulled up a video

and he put it to me. I didn't need to speak the language to see what was happening. He wanted to watch to see how I felt about what he was about to show me. So I can replay what I saw on this iPhone. There's a man in a suit dressed well and he was walking through this. And I had nightmares about this for a while.

Very hilly, grassy terrain. And the guy's walking and he keeps putting his hands up like this. But you're seeing the back of him. So there's a guy filming and he keeps turning around putting his hands up. So I'm asking my translator like, what's going on? And the gang members are just saying, just wait, just wait. And they kill the man. He's laying down all in pieces.

They're all laughing and jumping up and down with machete, rusty machetes. And very quickly, as this is happening, my mind is already in the survival. Okay. I can't show weakness. I want to cry for this man, but I cannot do. This is not the time. I'll do this another time. So right off the bat, I got to tell these guys.

cursing like how crazy they are. I'm like, you think I'm crazy? You guys are crazy. And I'm like kicking my translator. My transit is very good. And he was, he's been doing this for like CNN and all the big companies. He knows how to stay alive. And based on my reaction, they allow me to come into the community.

But can you imagine if they said no? What was no? No wasn't like, okay, you're going to go back to your hotel and you're just not going to get access today. No could have been let me walk. you out there and show you what my machete looks like or what it feels like. Those are things that they're not on my camera. If you watch my City Duceau-Lay video, you'll see me smiling and even at times joking around while filming in this area, not knowing I went through like a good 15 minutes of like

life or death in order to get inside to film that very short video. Now calling them crazy seems like a roll of the dice. No, you know what? remaining the authority while being respectful, they know they're crazy, right? They know. And it's definitely a touchy thing. With Trinidad, there's people that joke and say that I look like

the character from up, the old man that goes up. And so when the gangsters, even guys with guns say that, you know, they speak English in Trinidad. And I'll tell them, you're lucky you have a gun right now because if you didn't have a gun, you wouldn't be saying that. And I have to defend myself in a way that they respect me. It's almost like jail. I don't know if you've been in jail. If you're a pushover in jail, people are going to push you over. So I think the reason people allow me to get into these

kind of places is because they respect me to a point where I'm safe. Nothing has happened to me. Now, what do you think happens if you're deferential? If you're like kind of play it off, I feel like that would be my gut instinct. Someone would be like, hey, you look like so-and-so. I'd be like, oh, that's pretty funny. You're probably right. And I would lean into it. Pushover then. And how would they treat you if they knew a pushover? For sure, differently. Would it put your life in danger?

I think it could. You would just be more of a target to get things from? Probably both. Hmm. Yeah, because no. Would they allow what are their opposition to insult them? No. It wouldn't be a joke.

It would be your life would be on the line. If somebody from six said that to seven or seven said that to eight, et cetera, no, that would be you're dead for that. So I'm here. I'm respectful of you. I definitely wouldn't say to the wrong person, but I know how high they are up in the hierarchy, and I know who I can bite back a little bit with

and who I can't. And how can you tell? Based on their position and in their role in the community. Interesting. Not everyone with a gun is a powerful person. Most of the time it's the opposite. Normally it's like the least powerful people are the ones with the guns.

doing the work for the powerful people. Do you get what I mean? Yeah. So understanding, I'm not an expert at gangs, but I think I'm very good with people and reading people. And I know when to bite and not to bite. I'll put it that way.

When a guy has a gun, you don't want to bite too much. Yeah. I guess I'm curious, like, if a low-level guy with a gun wants to prove something. Yeah, but he would need permission from the leader. Right, because if he were to kill you, No. Then he would die.

He would die. And he knows this. Yeah. And his family would die. Yeah. So he would have to, it would have to be, like for me to die, it would have to be something planned out, one of the leaders. And I don't see any benefit in killing me. I become the most popular person.

Their whole, it would be media press all over the world, terrorists died. It doesn't help anyone. Yeah. And they know that. And see, Haiti's different. Trinidad. Haiti, I think anybody could die. Because we've seen it.

Kidnapping and death happens every day there. But in Trinidad, they don't want that kind of, I don't know, they don't want that pressure of the world. So I feel like I'm safe there. Interesting. I'm safe enough. You know, I'm not like random shootings happen every day. Yeah, you get clipped by a bullet. Right.

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Let's get back to the show. Now, I'm always curious in these types of places, like, what is the religious component? Is faith an element? And I know that a lot of these places, there's like Santeria and, you know, different, like, almost witchcraft practices. Do you see any of that? Do people talk about it? Is that an element?

Is there a divine or a supernatural component to the crime? Yeah, every country is different. No doubt, like Trinidad, right? You have Muslim. and you have Rasta that are religions as well. In Haiti, I got to see the, like as in depth as humanly possible, more about the voodoo religion.

I've never gotten deep enough to know if that motivates any of the violence happening. Did you witness any Haitian voodoo? Yeah, for sure. And what does that look like? I cried. I'm not a religious person. I believe in a God.

I don't, I don't, I can't say I pray to anybody in particular. But when I was there and I saw how happy voodoo made these strangers, when I say cried, I don't, I don't mean like I, I like, like, cried like a child, like tears came down my eyes because I saw how passionate they were about their religion, much more passionate than I am. And I read the comments under the video and the people, people will say, well, like, Haiti's number number one problem is voodoo. I didn't see it that way.

just because I don't agree with what they do doesn't mean, like my opinion means nothing. So just because I don't agree with them killing a chicken as a sacrifice to their voodoo doesn't mean that it's not right or wrong. They're going to eat the chicken. I eat chicken every day. Who am I as an outsider to say that their religion is better or worse than mine?

Is that the ritual that you witness that they sacrifice the chicken? Yeah. And I don't know how I get these opportunities, but one of the lead, I don't know what they, I think it's a priest. Voodoo priest brought me into... A bouquetty? Is that what they call it?

Death room. I don't know what I call the name. But I went into a death room. And he's never invited an outsider ever into a death room. And I went into a death room. What is a death room? It has his, every man in his family back to 300 years ago. And their skull is taken out and put into a doll,

almost like a, like a children's doll. And bones, if a child has early death, the bones are kept and stacked up. In over 300 years, you have lots of your family in this death room, and you're supposed to go there to feel comfort. And like, I don't know how I get myself in these predicaments. I was so excited to be in there.

I know nothing about voodoo, but learning about the culture and how passionate this man was about it. Again, if you read the comments, people are not always nice. They're not open-minded. A lot of people are like, if you're not my religion, you're my enemy. And I'm not like that. I'm like, I want to learn as much as I can. Yeah, so I have that video.

It's to me one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had, something I'll remember forever. And I don't know why I cried. I got very emotional that day. I think it's because these strangers trusted in me, they felt something in me, that they had never felt in somebody else because I was the first person to ever be allowed in this room.

So I'm very grateful for that opportunity. And I'm like, I'm an emotional guy all together. But opportunities like that is the reason that I travel the world. Yeah, I think it's the ultimate sign of respect that you had respected them enough to be genuinely curious without some type of angle and you came a long way to learn about them.

And they showed your respect and kind. And they also know I risk my life like even getting there. Right. It's not, there's no other tourists there. It's not because there's a lineup of tourists that want to get there, right? It's like, oh, you're crazy enough to get here. Let me show you what we have.

Wow. Now, I'm curious about Trinity because, I mean, obviously, Islam has different elements as far as like the militarization of their faith and that some people will be ardent pacifists, but I know Rastafari, I think, across the border pacifists. Yeah. So how does the pacifism of Rastafari fit in with? the gang nature of the Trinidadian gangs. So tough.

You know, from how I understand it is, like, what neighborhood you're born in will decide what your religion is. Okay, so like, if you're born on this side of the street, you're Muslim. If you're on this side, you're Rasta. There in Trinidad, there's definitely Rasta communities. I visited a community that lives the life of a Rasta, a genuine Rasta. And then there are those that just call themselves Rasta. I see.

And because the neighborhood that they're in is a Rasta. And they're culturally rasta, and they enjoy certain elements of the culture and of the faith. They picket shoes. Yeah. And even with the Muslim that I met, you know, I met some in the Muslim community that they tell me they abide by all the rules. But yet they're still profiting from all the crimes we just spoke about, right? So it's still about interpreting the rules to the religion.

Everybody interprets it different. And them, they're not violent. unless they need to be. If somebody comes and starts shooting at them, they will be shooting at you. They're prepared and they're ready to lay down their life for this. Now, is that in the Quran?

I don't know. I don't know enough about it. So it's a touchy. It's touchy to me. Because I didn't want to insult people by asking them too much about religion. Yeah, I mean, trying to expose a hypocrisy while sitting in front of a gang member

is going to be, you know, a controversial thing. Well, somebody was upset. The title of my video, if I remember this correct, was like Muslim gang, Lavantil, in Lavantil or something. And people did attack me like, why did you add that they're Muslim in a gang? Well, they're Muslim in a gang.

And that's why I titled it as I title it. They're outspokenly Muslim. They weren't secretly Muslim. So I just document it and use the wording that I, I pick up during the conversations with them. It's also a part of the identifying feature of the gang. I think it's like one of the reasons I would want to click.

Right. I wouldn't like how do, who gets the opportunity to interview a Muslim gang? Mm-hmm. It's sort of contradictory. All Muslim and gang are two words that you don't normally associate together. Right. And they were very kind to me. Sure.

I would hang out with them. I wouldn't feel like anything negative is going to happen. Mm-hmm. But I'm not opposed to them. I'm not bringing no violence to them. I'm not trying to take their. territory. I wouldn't want to, to be honest with you. Now, of your time in this specific part of the world, in the Caribbean, what was your most memorable meal? Oh, it's tough. Because it's

not always about the quality of the meal, it's the people and the conversation and the experience that you're having. Yeah, I don't know. That's tough. That's very, very tough. I've met so many interesting people. And I think meals are like the way to start a really good conversation. I don't know, you got me stuck. I'm sorry, I love the food in the Caribbean. Trinidad in Jamaica, to me, spice, the spice of Trinidad, the food, incredible.

And the Jamaican people as a whole have treated me so good in my whole life. I grew up in a, in Toronto, in a Jamaican neighborhood. So I've always eaten Jamaican food. Yeah. So it's like, it plays a huge role in my day-to-day life, even from before. this whole YouTube thing.

Which country's got the best plantains? Who's got the best? You're trying to get me in trouble here. That's the most dangerous question. You know what I mean? The gangs are one thing. But when you start comparing oxtail, that's where you're in trouble.

You really want to get in a fight with Trinneys and Jamaica? You talk about who has the best KFC. That's really upsetting to them. Why is KFC play a rule? I don't know. Like in Jamaica, KFC is like you're the way to flex your muscle. On a first date, you bring a girl to KFC. Oh, really?

And in Trinidad, Trinidad is where Zinger, The Zinger is created, founded, and Trinidad has the fastest KFC in the world. So, like, when you order, like, 10 seconds, you're getting your meal. Oh, wow. So both of them, like, they're very proud of their KFC. It is weird, eh?

They got an old white guy on the logo, and you got Trinidad and Jamaica that are overly proud of there. So you got to ask your Caribbean audience, who has the best KFC, and they'll go to war over that question. Oh, that's hilarious. So I won't answer that question. I've heard KFC plays a cultural role in Japan as well. Have you ever heard this?

No, I've been to Japan, but I've never, I haven't felt it in the same manner that I felt it. It's certainly not the same way, but I think it is a Christmas dish. Right. That on Christmas time, for whatever reason, it got imbued with the holiday, and I'm misremembering all the details. But if my memory serves at like Christmas time, and again, Japanese people are not predominantly Christian. Obviously, there's factions, but that there are as a cultural, sort of like holiday, they do KFC at Christmas time. As a part of like a marketing campaign,

they got sort of conflated and now it's still done in Japan to this day. Who would have thought? Right? It's hilarious. I love those little things where it's like, oh yeah, that's what they do. Well, now you know, Trinity versus Jamaica. Wow. This is so interesting. Now, how did you end up in Ukraine? You know, when the war began, I wanted to go.

I submitted an application to get credentials right away. And I waited the process, like to get approval, to get a certificate that allowed me to get in. I was denied. I reapplied again. I was denied. I told my wife, which is my number one supporter of everything I do, we've been together almost 20 years now.

I said, I'm just going to go. Let me just go and see, you know, a little backstory growing up as a child, My friends wanted to be firefighters, police or construction, diggers. It's funny, my friends, they want to be a digger. I want to be going to war, but not as a soldier. I wanted to be a photographer. My dream was always photography.

That was the first time where I felt like I was experienced enough that, yes, I'm putting myself in danger, but no, I don't feel like it's life-threatening danger. Let me just go to Ukraine and feel it out, even though I was denied access twice. and I went there and I figured it out and I was able to get as close as possible to the front lines and see what it's life like to live during war, a modern day war.

And it is a modern day war because, you know, when I got there, my hotel, I was the only one in the hotel. They showed me the bunker down in the basement. They also told me to download an app so technology plays a part. Now when a missile comes within a certain, you know, radius of yourself, your apple alarm off.

And that will give you anywhere from like 30 seconds to two seconds to hide or to get into a structurally safe place. So that alarm would continue to go off. And it would drive me crazy the first few days. I'm like, every time it went off, I thought I'm dying. Like, I'm dead. But after a day or two, I'm like, I'm going to get closer. Because when you're in like Kiev, the capital, you're very far from where

what's happening. Missiles will come to you, unfortunately, but like to get into the front lines, you got like an eight to ten hour drive. So day to day, I kept making myself closer and closer and closer until I got into the town, which was like really most affected where all of the houses are abandoned, or most of the houses are abandoned. And then I got to see what it's like living in a real life war.

And how did you get to Kiev in the first place? Yeah. On a bus? I don't remember what country I was in. Georgia or something, like you flew. Not Georgia, but I don't remember. I went through a few countries. Interesting.

Austria, I think I took a bus from Austria or Poland. Maybe I went through both. So I didn't do anything illegal to get in. And I was always allowed in. What I was being denied for was the press credentials that would allow me like to be an official photographer. They never said I couldn't come into the country. So then as I got closer and closer,

or what people don't realize, like you can't just go to war, right? You can't just like, I'm going to go to the front lines. And no, there's spot checks. Very intensive spot checks where they're checking everything about you. So at first I hid that I was a YouTuber.

I'm like, I'm not going to tell them. And then the guy that was there with me was ex-military. I found a guy that was crazy enough, Igor, to come with me to the front lines. He's not a YouTuber. I was paying him money. And he spit it out during one of these spot checks. Chris is a YouTuber.

He wants to show the world what Ukraine's going through. And I saw how proud everybody was that I'm risking my life. So that ended up being my story every step along the way. Like he's the crazy guy that's willing to risk his life to show the world. And one of the other tricks was filling up our car with dog food, dog and cat food. There was one spot check we couldn't get through. And we said, look, we brought the food for the animals of the homeowners that have died. and we're going to go feed the animals

and they allowed us in with the dog food and we did feed the animals. Something you don't think about during war is if you only have a few minutes to up and leave, a lot of animals are being left. They're not allowed to come on the bus, the government bus. So they're left to fend for themselves and they're so loyal to the home stead

that even though the roof is off, the walls are off, even when a missile's coming, they might run away. Well, they're coming back. They're waiting for those. Amazingly and very sadly, as I'm walking through these communities where the houses blown off, every one of them had a dog or an animal waiting, waiting for them to come. So very, very rough. I filmed it.

I think it's some of the best videos I ever filmed. Saddest at any point, I could die. I stayed in a bomb shelter, like a real authentic bomb shelter, where people had left in like 60, days. They don't even see outside. They're scared to look outside because they'll die. And I got to see a life that I'd never dreamed of. But my content was really held back. You know, I thought millions of people are going to watch this content. And I think it's like three, four thousand views only. I think with the algorithm and the way it works, certain content, they don't want the world to see. So it's held back, at least at my level. I almost wish it did better.

right? Because I want the world to see what's happening. I'm against war. I'm always against war. I think there's always a different answer to it. But I also think it's very important to document what's happening. Not avoid it, not pretend like it's not happening. Document it and let the world come up with a better solution.

What is the most unexpected thing about that conflict that you wish more people knew about? What I'm upset at since I went through it is, look, there were nights I was in, Kiev at a bar drinking whiskey and smiling, even though a war was happening in the country. What else am I supposed to do? What else is anybody supposed to do? Other people are in the bar. Right. And there's clubs still going on in Kiev because you've got to continue on with your life.

People are going to university. They're going to school. So if you only looked at one element of that part, and I saw the comments, I've seen videos go out, propaganda of nightclubs in Kiev. And the comment is like, are you, this is where we're sending our money. to war. And what did they expect to happen? Right?

The missiles are not going there. They're going to a different part of the country. And people are dying and being tortured. And I did a whole interview of people that were tortured firsthand. And yes, in Kiev, there's people continue on with their life. I just wish people were, I don't know, more intelligent before leaving a stupid comment. You know, and really understanding that people are dying. Even until today, people are still dying.

On both sides. I'm not taking the side. I just think war is not the answer. Yeah. Something has to be done. I mean, some of the drone footage that I've seen is just like heartbreaking. And you know what? What I learned about this is, I interviewed some people and I said I would not release the footage until the war is over.

A lot of the people for the Ukraine fighting for Ukraine have no history of military, no, they might have like went on the weekend hunt with their kids and owned a gun. and now they're put in a circumstance that they're defending their country. They never killed somebody. Not everyone is meant to kill people, but they're put in that spot that they don't want to be.

They want to be with their family, right? So, and I'm sure it's the same on both sides. I'm sure there's Russian soldiers that, they're not soldiers, they're not like lifelong career or militants. They're just brought in to defend or not even defend however you want to word it,

either way, it's not, it's a sad situation. Hmm. And how long were you there for? A couple, probably two or three weeks. And was there any moment that was a little hairy that you were like? A lot of it. Because nighttime, when you're in the front lines,

there's no lights allowed because the drones follow the lights. You know, they, even going out in the streets, you'll become a target. So you run from place to place, but no lights, no street lights, no nothing. So when the lights go out at night, it's a very eerie feeling, nobody outside, no cars, no nothing. Silence, but you hear the bombs in the background, the missiles and your phone is going off. And I'm sleeping in this bunker underground that's very, it's not like built to be a bunker.

It's like a moist basement of an unfinished school that's like 80 years old. You know, mildew and moss growing on the wall, but kids are there drawing cartoons. and I'm like, this is war. You know, the rest of the world doesn't understand what's going on right now here today. This is war. You know, the man that was manning that bunker showed me lots of photos of dead bodies just above.

Like, look, this happened two days ago. Look how many people died just above the bunker. So when you get in that bunker, understand, this is not a game. This is not for views. This is for your life. And when I interviewed the people there, they're like, I'm not leaving until the war is over.

And imagine it's probably been two years. since this has been, since I was there. Those people are running away down there. A lot of them are 80, 85 years old. They can't deal with the stress. Not only the bombs. And I met one woman that she's the only one in the whole community, didn't leave.

Her house has already been hit. She's like, I'll die here. I don't have nothing. I don't have no family. I don't have, the world needs to hear these type of stories in my eyes. That's why I do what I do. Like somebody else coined the words like giving a voice to the voiceless. Because I don't only film gangs.

Gangs don't excite me. Unfortunately, it's the kind of content that people want to see. But me, I just like, I like hearing stories in showing the world, things that they might not see without me and my camera. I think gangs highlight something important because I do think it shows the fundamental nature of what it is to be human, for better, for worse. There is an ugliness to it, but there is something that I think is like fundamental and intrinsic to humanity that is showcased in gangs. That across all gangs, it seems like, and I'm curious what you think about this, like, you know, from the Caribbean to East Africa to Chicago, there is a code that exists amongst gangs.

And sometimes it's malleable, but there is an essential nature like, you know, if we're doing crime together, don't sell me out. That exists across the world. And there's something fundamental to, you know, what it is to be human. that I think is showcased in that. And the way gangs operate and collateral and how people will try to, you know, extort other people. Like, again, there's no class for this, and this has been going on for thousands and thousands of years,

it's not necessarily a new phenomenon. So I do think, you know, gang and crime-related content, sure, there is a glorification component that I think is reasonable for people to criticize, but I think, furthermore, if it's done with an analytical view to showcase the humanity and what it is to be human,

then I think that is where it said it's most important as a just a medium. Right. I'm curious, what are the, the throughlines you found amongst, you know, war zones to, you know, gang wars that are true across the board? Are there truisms that you found amongst these gang cultures? There are, there are, like, beliefs that I had prior, that I found to be broken over and over and over again. because there are no real rules. They might say there are rules, right?

But there are not. I hear stories about them all the time. Like my best friend that was in the gang just killed my brother, killed my sister. Now, there really are no rules. It's normally the highest person leadership role, gang leader, is the one that profits the most. They're also being targeted every day.

You never really meet an old gang leader, right? At some point, they're going to be killed or incarcerated. But if you want to look at the one or two common factors, is like money drives it in power is the other answer, because I meet a lot of guys that have more than enough money to live the rest of their life. So what's the next reason? They want to be the biggest and the baddest.

And there's always going to be an upcoming group of, needy youth that want to participate, want to make a profit. You know, some of the people I met are wearing two, three hundred thousand dollars in diamonds and they're living in the hood. Like, it doesn't make sense, right? If you really cared about your people,

your people would have homes and food, but, you know, it's a way, a flamboyant way to show your power. Who is that guy? Who is that person that was wearing, like, a quarter million in jewelry? I don't know who it was. they had a mask on.

But what area or what? Six. It's Paul Street. St. Paul Street is by far the worst neighborhood. But imagine being, let's say, a community person, somebody in from the community, whether they're a gang member or not, I don't know in particular with that person in the mask. I don't know who they were that wore it out. But you have to be a powerful man to walk through the worst hood, we'll call it, neighborhood

with that kind of jewelry. Right? That's, you'd have to be powerful or you're stupid, right? Because your life is, people kill for 10 or $20. So you can imagine what they would do to you for that. So it's a sign of power, no doubt. And that's in Trinidad. Trinidad.

Over the world, really. But I find Trinidad really like to show their gold and their diamonds. Yeah, any boss or anybody that's big in the community will definitely have hundreds of thousands of dollars in jewelry. Wow. What is a story that someone told you that made you cry?

Well, I remember one of my first trips to Cuba. This got to be, let's say about 15 years ago. And even then being the type of person that doesn't like all-inclusive, like, resorts, I would always, like, go off the beaten path. I was staying in this one place in Santiago de Cuba. And I'm at a taxi driver. I'm like, just showing me around off the beaten path. And I remember him driving me to a place called Maria del Pilar.

Still a very important place to me and my heart. We drove through rivers. He's like, you can only come here a certain time of the year because the river's too high. You can't drive through. And that's with his broken Spanish and my understanding of Spanish. We don't speak the same language. We get up to this community. It's got like 10 to 12 houses on a street that he's the only car.

like no car. They take donkeys or horses. And I'm just going to spend the day there with them. So I brought some food and some drinks, not knowing what I was getting myself into. And I remember seeing dogs laying at the side of the road looking like they were near death. It's like 95% like they're about to check out.

And I remember I only had a little bit of water with me, but I went up to this dog and I sat beside it. I was petting the dog. Not for any particular reason. just, I was there for a couple hours. And I went to cup my hand and put a little bit of my water from my, my jug, my own personal drinking jug to my hand just to put it by the mouth of this dog. And one of them grabbed the Cuban gentleman, grabbed my arm.

And I'm like, what, what? He was really upset. And I'm like, the dog is going to die mortal soon, surtaicum, like soon to die. Right. And he looked and he point at all the kids on. the street all there he said we have no water no water total no water and i didn't see it i was with them all day i didn't feel their pain and it's weird how humans are that we are normally

and i see this with the comments on my videos people are they're sadder for the dogs i didn't how do i put it in a nice way i emotionally broke down i'm like you mean you have no water i didn't think they had no water i presumed like they were all some island to meet me, I presume that they had water. He said, give us the water. In Spanish, give us the water. And I'm like, at that point of my life, I'm like, I have three kids. They all have lots of birthday gifts and Christmas gifts and have family get

together and they're laughing and dancing and all this type of stuff watching TV and being kids. And these kids I met in Maria del Pilar don't have water. And 35 minutes away is a hotel with a bunch of tourist guests. getting drunk dancing on the beach. And I couldn't swallow it. I really cried. I cried in front of him.

I cried. I can probably find my video clip still. Because my mom shares it with me once in a while. I'm like, we have to do something about this. This, I cannot, I can't, no, we gotta do some. What's it gonna take to get water? And we sat down and we wrote down, we need like three kilometers of piping. We need a, we need a generator, we need a, something to put in the water.

that's going to filter. We calculate the whole thing. I think it's going to cost me like three or four thousand U.S. But in Cuba, it's not like you just go to the local store and buy all this. We're going to take some time to find all these materials. I gave a guy a job. You got three or four days. I don't care where you have to go get all the materials.

We got all the materials. We were able to bring water to this community. I say we because I couldn't have done it. I was just the finance. This is before you two, obviously. and I was detained or arrested in Cuba shortly thereafter for bringing water to this community. It made the government look bad because the people in Marie Del Pilar is like, how is this guy come, Gringo and give us water and the government can't.

But that story, I haven't shared that story in a long time. But to understand the troubles that people go through, and 95% of the world is something I experience over and over again. It never becomes easier. I've been to 128 countries. I'm grateful for every meal I have. There's never a day where I'm in a bad mood because I know there are people eating mud cookies in Haiti.

There are people in Cuba that don't have water. There are people in Ukraine or Gaza that at any moment could lose their life. And all over the world, and you know, we're both very, we spoke about this off camera. I'm very grateful to be alive and to be born with the opportunity to do what I do when most people just want water or somewhere to sleep or somewhere safe from missiles and bombs. So I still have that inner fight emotionally with a lot of the travels I do. Why do I, why was I given this?

Yet somebody right in front of me just as deserving as I am, not giving. given that opportunity. So it's a fight, it's an internal fight. And rather than me decide and answer to that, because I don't think we have an answer, I figure let's document what we can, I help when I can. But I think the world should know what's happening. Do you think the world's getting better?

No. I think avoidance is something that, I think if we went back to World War II, everybody knew what was going on. around the world. Now you just change the channel. You don't want to see what's happening with Israel and Palestine.

It's watch Netflix. I came home. You know, I've been many times to places that I've seen sad things and I would share my stories and I would hear from friends and family like Chris, we have enough problems. Why are you telling us this?

The world doesn't want to know. It's very easy to have an opinion about everything even with like no no research on the topic everybody has an opinion we're on youtube you know we we we put our content up in somebody even after 30 seconds can conjure up an opinion whether it's right or wrong it's their opinion and a lot of it is just so false from from the reality of what's happening in the world sad to me really sad i mean but certainly there's places you've went to and when you went back, maybe five, 10 years later, specific places improved.

Do you have any stories where maybe on a micro level, things got better? Yeah, Belize. Belize is incredible country, incredible people that I've grown to love very quickly. I went to Belize. My first day in Belize city, very high crime rates again, gangs, very high.

I went to a place in the swamp. And basically, there's a, I'd say there's about a hundred family members, not all one family, but like 100 people living in the swamp. They've gotten wood that they found around the country and built up little, almost like camp like areas on stilts because the swamp goes up and down, there's crocodiles.

And they built something called London Bridge, which is like skids. It's just stacked them, three here, five here, and you walk to your house. Nobody owns the land. But because it's in the swamp, the government doesn't really mess with them. They're like, we're not doing anything with the land. So my first day in Belize, I stumble upon the swamp people.

And I documented with my camera. And one of the men is shackled to his makeshift house by his ankle. He's got a metal around his ankle and he's tied, chained to his home because he's a drug addict. And his sister. is worried he's going to die. He's going to go get drugs and not pay the person. They're going to kill him. And they've already attempted to kill him a few times.

So out of the blue, they let me document this. I titled the video, the swamp people of Belize City. And my first day or two, it got like half a million views. People were upset. Why you call them a swamp people? A swamp. What they didn't see is I returned to Belize like six months later because I love the people. And to my surprise, the government has given them

their land, put a street in like a concrete asphalt street where they no longer have to use the London Bridge. Oh, wow. The guy that was like tethered to the drug addict was given eight months. He didn't do the full eight months, but in rehabilitation. And the owner said, if you complete, we'll give you a job. And somebody else saw the video gave him a house. So he has his own house.

Oh, wow. And all these people now have. property whereas before it wasn't their land. Every day they had to worry about the government eventually coming in and bulldozing everything and not owning anything. Wow. And that's like one of the positive things I could show somebody from my videos. I went in and I showed something very negative, but it's reality.

Reality is not always going to be easy to swallow, but the reality ended up turning into something very, very positive for the people. They don't have the best house, but they have something they own. They own a piece of property. Yeah. And it wouldn't have happened without my swamp people of Billy City video. And I don't want to take credit for it because those are the people that had to live there and live through it and went through everything. But just shining a little light on the situation helped their situation.

Yeah, that's so cool. I mean, having something just to call your own, I think, has a profound impact psychologically. Huge. Yeah. Even the people that have very little, when they have something, I can see the smile. Like, their heart is like, I got something. Yeah. Right, and I applaud it.

We don't need a lot of material things in this life. But when you have something that you're proud of, I'm proud of them. Yeah. What are the places in the United States that you've gone to that have left an imprint on you? Everywhere. So many problems.

In Canada as well. You've always asked me, like, you go to these other places, your own country's falling apart. And it's true. Some of the worst places I've ever seen are in the USA? Where? Gary, Indiana. What did you see in Gary?

Like hell on earth, like a movie. It's like a movie set. In Gary, Indiana is where Michael Jackson's from. Maybe like 30 minutes away from Chicago, downtown Chicago. Hell on earth. Like, it's not, now the people from there would not think it's hell because they are accustomed to it. It's all they know.

There's some very loyal people from Gary. Gary Indiana gun rolls, laws. Anybody can walk into, uh, a gun store and buy guns. I came across guys that you can see in my video that hundreds of guns. Yeah, it's just not what I would expect in the great US of A. Is that what it is ultimately?

Yeah. That the fact that it was in America was the most shocking part. So I've seen it my whole life. Like I've been to Gary, Indiana many, many, many times in my life. Always difficult and to understand how something so close to Chicago could be like, it looks like a war zone.

It looks like Mosul in Iraq. It looks like the abandonment. There's so many countries I visit in the world. People will tell me how their dream is to go to the USA and live in these mansions and have these great opportunities. And they never, in a million years, would understand if I showed them a video of what Gary Indiana looks like. And it's not just Gary, Indiana.

There are many places that I visited Memphis, in Mississippi. Jackson, Mississippi is amongst the world. worst of the worst of the worst. And I'm from Canada, Vancouver. There are streets in Vancouver that look like hell has come to Canada. So a lot of people outside of our part of the world don't realize that we are also going through a lot of problems, poverty, drugs, the combination of crime.

And it's rough. But I would say overall, probably the roughest places I've ever been is the USA. When speaking about like gangs and crime, it's like it's rampant. It's without rules. A lot of them are young, younger men. Drugs definitely play a role in this. One of the men I met in Memphis seemed like a kind young man. He, I featured him in my video and then, but a month ago I saw he like shot four people.

And during his court appearance, he was crying and saying drugs played a role. but like the world is falling apart. The USA, you know, is to me at the forefront of everything. You know, everybody aspires to come to the U.S. And if they saw how much help the USA needs and Canada, it's sad because if you don't live in Gary, Indiana, there would be no reason for you to ever go. Same in Trinidad.

You know, I had a very conflicting conversation with an opera scale woman in Trinidad. We're at a bar, fairly expensive bar. She's like, Chris, you know, your videos are not honest. And I said, what do you mean? She's like, it's not dangerous in Trinidad. She's like, I've lived my whole life. Nothing has happened to me.

And I asked her, and alcohol was involved, if she's so selfish and self-centered to realize, like, Trinidad is not her. she has a driver to drive her up in the mountains to her big house, which is guarded with security guards, and she's brought to the finest of restaurants. Like that happens in Trinidad. There are millionaires in Trinidad that don't have to live in gang territory.

But to be as blind to say that because she has not encountered any danger, that there is no danger is a scary thing. Same thing in the U.S. and Canada. There are a lot of people in Toronto that would say everything's perfect. but how can you drive past a big park and see hundreds of tents of homeless people and and say everything's perfect? It's not perfect. There's something wrong. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I want to help you make sports more fun. That's right. If you like watching sports, there's a way to make it 10 times more fun,

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Camp C-A-M-P, and with your first $5 lineup, you will get $50 instantly deposited into your account that you are able to play with. That's right. I mean, here I am, given the good people, some funds to play with. So, you're welcome. Let's get back to the show. Have you ever gone into any of those tent cities? Yeah, for sure.

My first video I filmed in Toronto, I think it's got about 400,000 views, was I spent a day in a tent city to understand in the dead of winter, cold winter in Toronto. What did you learn? Drugs is a real problem, mental illness is a problem. Shelters are not a glamorous option. A lot of people will say, just go to shelters. You know, with shelters, you have gangs as well, you have crime, you have a lack of freedom if you're not in at a certain time,

you're locked out. You don't have those same problems when you set up a tent in the park. So like if you're going to be homeless, yeah, shelter sounds good on paper until you're going to get viciously attacked or your stuff stolen. And when you're homeless, your stuff is very important to you. So, I mean, all stuff that we don't think about

because we don't live that type of lifestyle. But, you know, in that tent city, two or three times a week, somebody will die, an overdose. Right? And they'll cry and then they'll do drugs. And the cycle will continue. It's not going to rectify itself, right? That's the definition of insanity, right?

Hoping for a different result after doing the same thing over and over again. Somebody smarter than me has to realize there's real problems with homelessness, drugs, and crime, something has to be done. It's not going to fix itself. Did you speak to any people that didn't want to leave, that didn't want to be in a home that said,

you know, I like it better out here? Yeah, 100%. And what was their perspective? They've done it so long. They've lived it so long. They don't know any other way. It's like a free, I apologize for, like, comparing it to an animal, but it's like a free animal in Africa.

I doesn't want to be caged in the zoo. And the freedom that they have is they can go from one place to the next and survive. They don't want the newest Nikes. They want somewhere dry with a little warmth to stay tonight. They don't like the restrictions of what the government might put on them. And now are we all supposed to understand that? No, we're not supposed to understand it. But that's what works for them.

There's people I've met that have spent a lot of time in jail. They would rather be in jail than to be out because that's all they know now. We're not going to understand that. I don't want to be in jail. I'm not even for a day, for an hour. Right? So, but there are problems, no doubt. Yeah.

No, I've met people like that. Growing up in Florida, I would speak with people that were homeless and I would just ask, like, you know, like, what's the deal? Like, what's going on? Like, I see you're not doing as, you know, good as you used to be doing. Like, what's the situation? And you would get a bunch of different responses. And some people would say, you know, oh, I spoke to a guy who was like, oh, I broke my leg. And but I had a business.

I was doing landscaping. I had, you know, wife and I had two kids and everything was going good. And then I break my leg. And then I get on oxies. And then I get this drug addiction. And then I sell all of my equipment for more drugs. Then I lose my family and now I'm here.

Yeah. And I was like, damn. When did that happen? He's like, a year and a half, two years ago. It was like, in two years, you lost everything. He's like, yeah, I'm a drug addict. The craziest thing is like, people even have a story is 10 times worse than that, right?

They will never understand from birth. Yeah. You know, children being, or misused in their family. Like, how, I don't, we'll never understand what the pain they've gone through. But then talking to someone, you know, a block down the road saying, so what's your story? And he goes, equally as homeless. And he just says, I like it better out here. Yeah.

Oh, really? He goes, yeah, I don't like being confined and being told with you and have to show up for a job and all the bullshit. I could be a friend, though. That could be him trying to act with a certain confidence. As if there's an autonomy to his decision and not. an addiction or a mental health issue. Right. Not everyone's going to be honest with you.

Yeah. Especially at first conversation. You know, some, you've got to really dig deep. But hearing someone even just say, like, yeah, I prefer us. I'm like, that seems crazy. It is. It is. To us, it is.

Yeah. But what we do every day could seem crazy to him. Yeah, I guess, right? Get up and work every day. Yeah. Now, I'm always curious about scams. You've done a couple TikToks where you discuss scams. And my dad, having worked overseas for a lot of my childhood,

would always kind of tell me different. scams and I've lived in Paris for a little bit and I saw a ton of different scams I happen in Paris you know like a woman a Roma woman coming up to you saying oh do you speak English this is a letter from my distant relative like can you read it to me because I can't speak I can't read so can you read it to me and then you read the letter and the letter is like my dearest Sophia the whole family is dead and all of our money is gone and we have nothing and your children are and everything is bad and nothing is good. And as you're reading the letter to her,

she starts to cry. Yeah. And then she goes, oh, my God, do you have any money? I just lost everything. And I was like, oh, that's a good scam.

And the first time she did it to me, I was like, it's very, very crafty. Or like, a woman will run up to you and be like, oh, I found a gold ring. Did you drop this? Yeah. You've seen this one.

Yeah. I've seen different angles to the same type of story. These are so fascinating to me. They kind of, like, illustrate a certain cunning and like human wit that I find so funny. The ring one is hilarious.

A woman runs up to you on the street, sir, you dropped this ring, expecting you to kind of play on your own greed and say, I did drop this ring. Thank you so much. And then you take the ring. And then she says, for my generosity, can you give me $10?

I found your ring. Yeah. And then you give her $10 and the ring is virtually worthless. Yeah, yeah. It's great scam. Yeah. I'm curious.

What scams have you seen? No, I'm an expert. My quote is you can't hustle a hustler. I understand it. I can't be hustled. I really can't. And I'm aggressive in an instant. You know, so when I feel like I'm being taken advantage of,

a different side of Chris appears, a very different side. So I really don't get pushed around. And, you know, taxis are, I guess, the one way that they try to overcharge you. But I just fight back. I'm being dead serious. Like, I don't allow people to take advantage of me. So how does a scam work?

Explain it for someone that doesn't travel. Overpricing you on something or making you. it mandatory that you pay a certain fee. For me, it's even with government and police, but I just don't allow it. So what would happen? Mozambique, I was at a police checkpoint where the police would come over to my car

and I'm driving by myself and he'd be overly friendly. And I said, oh, you know, to get through, you need a certain stamp approval. And I said, no, I don't need that stamp. He said, yeah, yeah, if you don't have the stamp and he's smiling, you know, you go to jail. But if you give me your shoes, then we can...

I give you the stamp. So that type of thing, you know, where jail is like, give me something or go to jail. And what do you say? No, no, like I just cannot be taken advantage of. And what do they say? Not to a level of like I'm stupid. If the option is jail or shoes, I'm given to my shoes. But how can you tell?

But, well, because I know the rules, right? Like I've been to Africa enough times to know I don't need a special permission to go down the street. And I know there are parts of Africa. And I don't want to generalize and say Africa is like that because it's hot. But Mozambique is like that. I mean, corruption exists everyone. The worst of the worst when it comes to like police wanting stuff there. So what do you say?

He said, jailer shoes. I told them, you take my shoes. I take your gun. And we both laugh. I was like, give me your gun and I give you my shoes. Are you crazy? They do this. You can go.

Crazy. Yeah, crazy. You can go. Taxis overcharging. So you get in the taxi. you say, can you take me here? How much? Not knowing how far a hotel is.

So my general rule of thumb is I need to know a price before I go. Right? So I'll ask it to ask you, how far? I don't know. I don't always have a SIM card where I can GPS. So somebody recently in South Sudan, they said, uh, says, it's far, it's far, far. I said, how far?

He's far, far. He said, I said, how much? I think he said like 70 US dollars, which if it's far, then maybe, but like South Sudan is not, a big tourist zone. I'm the only tourist I'm going to see in South Sudan. So then I keep asking, I'm like, how far as we're driving?

He's like, don't worry, don't worry, 70, 70. And we got to my hotel like within one kilometer. So as I'm getting closer, I'm like, where's the hotel? And I can see the logo. I said, this is the hotel? He said, yeah. He said, okay, 50. I said, no, no, no, no.

So I paid him $5, where he wanted 70. But, okay. I don't want to side with the scam artist. But he's trying to feed his family, right? It's a touchy, man, because if I was put in that circumstance, and I was born there, I don't want to say probably, my kids are hungry, I'm going to overcharge you. I'm most definitely going to overcharge you.

So I don't take it as an insult. To me, that's different than somebody giving you a letter, because he's working. He's doing a service. Right. He's still overcharging, and I'm sure a percentage of people are too stubborn, they'll be just pay the money. Yeah.

it's a little different than pickpocketing to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're both wrong. One is optimizing your current job to get the most profit. The other one is just creating a illegitimate business outright to do crime. Yeah. And I think those things are different. People are going to hate me for that because I don't want to side with either of them.

I paid the $5. I didn't feel bad enough that I'm like, okay, let me give you the $7. I think there's a self-awareness to be able to look at a desperate situation and say, if I was in that situation, I would be tempted to do the same thing. For sure. Everyone wants to look at different countries and say, I would never do what they're doing. Or they'd do it with history and they say, if I was in the Weimar Republic and prior to World War II, I never would have been a Nazi. Yes, you would.

Right, 100%. Like, you're not so special that you're going to have some type of moral barometer where you're going to let yourself be a martyr for some cause. You know what I mean? 100%. I don't know. People are not as maybe unique or novel as they like to feel. I agree with you there. So, and I think traveling shows you that.

You're like, oh, we're kind of all the same shit. We are the same. That's the incredible thing. I meet nice people everywhere I go, no matter what. It's incredible. Yeah, in a war zone. Break every stereotype. Yeah.

The people that are supposed to be the nastiest people in the world, actually quite polite, and they'll give you the little that they have in their fridge. Yeah. So it's an amazing thing. Yeah, regardless of religion. Yeah. You get the opportunity to meet all types of people. If you ask me, the one common denominator in the world is...

There are nice people. There, there are, in my life, I've met very few evil people. I met people that do evil things. I meet them quite often. But genuinely, like, evil people, probably on my hand, I can count how many people I've met. Where I wouldn't trust them with my life. Everybody else has been, even in the worst locations, like from a Google standpoint, worst, most dangerous places, like, don't go to El Salvador.

You're going to be killed. You have tattoos. El Salvador has so many kind people. Right? So this travel thing has really opened my eyes to the fact that humans in general, we're born to be nice, to be helpful, to be grateful, to be kind, even when we get nothing in return. And trauma along the way can kind of warp and distort that.

In both ways. You know, I met a lot of people that are ex-gangsters that now give their whole life to, like, redeeming themselves. This is the old, like, son of an alcoholic parable. Yeah. It's like some people, they see their dad's an alcoholic. They become an alcoholic, but other people see their dad's an alcoholic, and they say, I'm never touching alcohol.

Right. And it can go either way. Right. Well, I find that if you've done enough hurt to the world, a certain percentage of people, they want to redeem themselves before they leave the planet. They feel a debt. Yeah. They're like, if I'm given the opportunity, let me help.

What is the tattoos thing in El Salvador? Well, gangs, right? Like, you're labeled a gang member. If you have tattoos. If you have tattoos, yeah. And Al Salvador for years and years was the murder capital of the world, right? Right. So any association with gangs is like life in jail.

The new governmental regime seems to have a sort of indiscriminately rounded people up and stopped the crime. Yeah. Probably consequently putting some innocent people in prison as well. 100%. But it seems like the crime, or at least the violent crime, is dropped drastically. As long as it's not your father or your brother or your husband in jail for life. That's what I'm saying. Me is an American.

I'm like, all right. Imagine they came and they picked up everybody that had tattoos in the U.S., right? You'd probably stop crime. You probably put some innocent people in jail, too. And the younger generations would just stop getting tattoos. They're still going to commit the crime. Right.

And if you want real propaganda, you tell the world that everything's perfect. We got all the criminals. Come on, how realistic. Do you think crime has stopped? No, it doesn't stop. Criminals are smart, too. Cover up your tattoos.

Now, you're a very savvy traveler. I feel like you have a good wherewithal, not only if people, but of culture and sort of what things you can and can't get away with. Like, I imagine if you're in a Muslim predominant country, you're not going to do things in any way to insult Allah or do things to insinuate any type of disrespect. Even cover tattoos. If I'm in a Muslim country, I just had a respect, put a long sleep shirt on. Right. Now, what is the dumbest thing you've ever done?

Somalia. What happened? It's hindsight. Because at the time when I did it, I didn't think I was numb at all. Sure. I was sitting at a little cafe outdoors. So the rules in Somalia, I mean Somalia. I mean Mogadishu.

Not Somaliland, where a lot of tourists go. I mean Mogadishu. Yeah. It's like off limits. But when you go to the country, the government gives you two military guards to stand with you at all times. So even in my hotel, they're sitting at my door. And you get to know them. They become friendly.

Like you joke with them. And like, they're with you. They're with guns, but they're with you. We're all sitting outside. with a translator at a cafe, and I'm eating a really ridiculously expensive, like ham and cheese sandwich. I know they saw me, and they're like 10 times the price.

And across from me, there's like 20 women with children. So beggars are never men from what I saw. It's always the woman is out there with their child to sort of look needy, right? So they caught me. I saw everybody walking by and not people, them any mind and actually treating them very disrespectfully. And I've always learned to, in my whole life, I've treated homeless equally.

I shake their hand. I understand we're all human. We're all equal. I went with my translator across to one of the women that seemed like she was in control of all of them and I'm like, I don't have any money. I don't have American money. I'm going to go to the market. I'm going to get currency and come back and give it to you.

And she's like, yeah, she's happy. and I think she didn't believe me that I was going to go. So I went. I was first of all, I was so happy to be in Somalia. It was like my first day. I've always wanted to go to Somalia. So I got this entourage of army following me,

not by my own sake, not my choice. I go to the market and I trade in money. Every $40 US is like a bundle of cash this big. So I think I got like at the time two or $300 US dollars worth. So it was like bags of money. And I was so. happy with it. So at for, and the videos there, it's, it's on, uh, social media. I'm taking money. Like, I'm a millionaire, because it's worth millions. So I'm like, Somalia, millionaire, maybe getting

caught up a little in the moment. Everybody's gathered around laughing and joking at me. I thought it was funny. Um, so now I go back to the women that were there waiting for me. And one child looked at me. And this is not the first time I've experienced this, but it's not common to have white people in parts of Africa. Kids are scared. Right? I find like kids want to touch or they're scared because they just haven't seen it, not their fault. So this kid was standing maybe, I don't know, the walls distance, 10 feet away. And I had a big smile and I presume the kid, about six to eight years old. And I'm smiling, I'm like, it's okay, it's okay.

And I have bags of money, right? And the kid looked scared. And my first thing I did was the stupid thing that I did. I took a big brick of money because it's all. tied up and I went like this and I threw it to the kid thinking the kid's going to catch the money the kid didn't catch the money the kid turned around and ran down the street the mom was there right so the mom picked it up and said thank you she was so happy and I said thank you the people that were with me the entourage were laughing like and then we went and we gave the money to everybody

piece by piece by piece I didn't think anything of it it was all in my video I uploaded the video throughout my time in Somalia, I gave away $2,000 of my own money. And at that time, I wasn't even monetized with YouTube. It was just me being like, give back something positive to the country. And the next morning I woke up and like my comments, I was reading like so many negative comments.

Like one of their, one or two or three, they're big social media, people from Somalia. There's Somalian descent, but not from Somalia. They're in the UK or Canada or US. the title of the video is like racist YouTuber from Canada throws money at us like we're animals and I'm like that's not my intention I'm racist is a word that can't be thrown around

without like show me some evidence of racism was my intention to throw money no I've seen a lot of videos in Africa that's on TV where they celebrate celebrities will drive in the car and throw money I mean Africans celebrities from the neighborhood, throw the money, and the kids will run along, and they'll celebrate. They're like, look, they're giving back to the community. Now, when I threw that bundle, I thought the kid was going to catch it, and there was no story.

I'm the one that edits my own videos. So if I thought it was bad or negative, I would have edited it out. Nobody would have seen it. I didn't think of it that way, especially the mother laughing and smiling, but they really ate me up. I got death threat after death threat after death threat. the police picked me up and uh because the police were mad at me okay when they brought me to the sergeant the sergeant's like he did nothing wrong this he's trying to help and he spoke english he's trying to

help our people but the way they did it they slowed it down they put dramatic music and the titles you can still watch the video racist YouTuber with the sad music slowed and they watched the kid turn around and run and you know the experience was something i learned from so i'm like you know what I was insensitive to the culture. My intention was good, but I definitely could have done it in a better way. And I still, this happened years ago, and I still get it like, are you still throwing money at Africans?

And I'm like, what? I've never in my life and thrown money at somebody, right? Never in my life. And that one time is something I'll hear about for the rest of my life. But I had so many Somalis reach out to me and be like, Chris, we knew your intentions were good. You went and shook everybody's hands.

Your hand is everyone. you're eating dinner with them, it's a lot different than the way that, if you just read the title, I would think I'm a jerk too. I'm like, this guy is a jerk. But in reality, that's something I wish I could go back. And I actually like Somalia,

I would want to go again, but the negative annotation with me in Somalia is like, they got stories about me being deported and arrested and jailed. That happened. I got in for questioning. And the sergeant let me go and apologize. I did nothing wrong. I was never deported.

I spent two more weeks there. But media can take a clip, add sad music to it, slow it down, and make you look like a real, like I look like a real bad person. And why were the police concerned? It's funny but not funny, but the police that arrest me also has a YouTube channel. And he was listening to his influencers come in and say, I'm a racist. So he assumed that I'm a racist and just followed, instead of following the law, he followed what these few people said about me. So that's a lesson, you know, at that point, I'll be honest, the stress of that, I'm like, what am I doing on YouTube? But at the time I've been doing YouTube, maybe six months, there's no rules to this game.

It's not like somebody tells you, like, what to do and what not to do. So again, hindsight, I'm like, stupid. Stupid if the kid didn't want the money, just give it to the mother, period. But it happened in the instance. I take, I don't want to say take credit for it, but I did it. My intentions weren't ill. I won't hide from it because there's video. videos of it, but my intentions were pure.

And sometime in my life, I would like to go back. Yeah. That's the only negative feeling. I can see both sides. I can see how that would look bad, especially if it's edited, sort of inappropriately and out of context. So I can see from their perspective. I also see you from your perspective.

No, but if you, if you were there's people that are asking for money. In the moment, and you saw everybody had a smile on our face, including the military that were with me, the translator, and the woman that accepted the gift. It's all on camera. So, yeah. But again, if I could take that back and I never live life like that, if I could take that moment back, I would take it back. Yeah. But I know it's me. And that's why I'm not afraid to talk about it. We're not perfect when it comes to this whole thing. And maybe someone else learns from it. Maybe there's someone else that's doing what you, what you're doing.

They're like, oh yeah, if I'm going to be giving money away, there's a way to do it tastefully to not, you know. I've been giving away money my whole life without doing that. Right. It caught up to me. I was caught up in the moment. It was during COVID. People didn't want to get close. I could make a million excuses in my mind, but truthfully, I didn't think about it. Yeah, it just happened. Throw it like I throw a ball.

Kid didn't catch it. Death threats came. Yeah, that also seems like an unnecessary reaction. But it is something I got to deal with. And right now, it's past me, but I get the comment now and then. Are you still throwing money at kids? Yeah. There's an element also of, like, having military with you throughout the whole country.

Yes. that would make me feel a little uneasy. But if you want to visit every country in the world, like I do, it's something you have to deal with. You have to deal with the rules of the country. Is that a liability? Does it put a target on you? 100%.

No, not a target. Are these people corruptible? No. Not in Somalia, necessarily, but just any other place. It limits what you're going to see. They allow you to see what you want to see. Like you were saying before. But I guess there's also a part of it's like,

I don't know if these military guys want to, they know I have money because they know that I'm, not from that good place. They know that I want to go home and they know where I'm sleeping. Yeah, I didn't think of it like that. Like, they became friendly with me. We had a great time.

It was cool. Yeah. And I had a great time in Somalia, except for that. Yeah. It's like when you have a big punch bowl, the juice tastes good, you're thirsty and one fly goes in.

You know what I mean? It sort of ruins the whole juice. Because Somalia was all in all. I had a great time. Yeah. I learned a lot. I got to experience a country that very few people in the world get to experience.

And what about Tajikistan? Haven't been. Is that interesting? Everything is. Every country I haven't been is on my list. Like, that's my list, right? The stands, Afghanistan and Pakistan I have done, but I'm still missing out on a few other than.

It was Beckastin. I've heard Tash Kent is beautiful. Yeah. Like, where else is on your list that you would like to go? Everywhere. And then some. Like everywhere. Because even to go to a country once or twice,

you're not really getting a. Yeah. a great understanding. So everywhere. There's nowhere not on my list. North Korea. Can't wait. And what is the process to go into North Korea?

It's possible because I'm Canadian. I can go. It's closed right now due to COVID. Still due to COVID. With rumors of it opening up very soon. And how do you balance the travel with your family? Hardest part. That seems like it would be the most difficult thing.

Most emotional part. I mean, I'm a comedian. I travel on the weekends, primarily in the United States, and that is difficult to leave my wife and my son. Yeah, so hard. Never easy. I don't want to make it look like

there's an easy way to do it. There's not. I think having the right companion, my wife knowing this has always been my dream, two of my three children are adults now. Makes it easier. Makes it easier, but so does, like, FaceTime and the ability to do,

jump on and talk to somebody face to face, which was not possible, you know, 10 or 12 years ago. But it's still difficult for sure. Do you travel with your family ever? Yeah, but not to these dangerous places, right? My kids are in school. My wife has her own career. It's a couple times a year we get to travel.

My kids have been more countries than the people that are watching. So, but I don't bring a camera along. So people don't see that. So because they don't see it, they presume it doesn't happen. Yeah. But those type of memories I don't want the world. I want that to be just us. That's for you guys.

I don't have to worry about lighting and audio and stuff. Yeah, you don't want to work. Yeah. What do you feel like is the most misunderstood country you've been to? Oh, so many. Most of the Middle East. Iraq is up there for sure. In what way?

Just like kind, gentle people. The furthest from terrorists. Just so many people that are so kind. How else can I put it? it, so many different religions, including Christianity. Everything I thought I knew about Iraq, just from what I heard in our media, is like, it broke every stereotype, completely. Incredible people.

And I recommend anybody that even a beginner traveler could travel to Iraq and have a great time. Really? Because it's just like such a warm community and culture. And how would they do it? What advice do you have to travelers that are listening to this that want to do what you do? Yeah, I probably do some research. But try to avoid the Google questions like, is this country dangerous?

Because every country is dangerous. Yeah, is the United States dangerous? Right. Depends where you go. Right. It's tough. Everybody's different. I would say if you're into travel or you think you're into travel, you know, write down what you're passionate about.

Some people like birds or like landscape or wildlife or volcanoes or, you know, You know, start small. You don't have to start with Afghanistan. Start with Europe. You know, Europe is a safe place. And then as you get a little more excited about adventure, then make it a little bit more difficult. You know, like if you went as a newcomer to Afghanistan,

you would hate travel. You would retire. You would not want to do it again. Right. There are countries like that. You've got to work your way up to really enjoy. But the world is such an incredible place. Africa, you know,

my favorite continent in the world. Like, if you've never been to Africa in your lifetime, like, you're missing out on so much. The cultures, the food, the music, the tradition, the wildlife, everything. Like, you can go to Kenya, for example. And let's say you just like food. The food is good.

Like tribes, like the Maasai tribe, you can go in and learn about the tribe that's living in the same manner that they were living a thousand years ago. or you can go to a great big city, Nairobi and eat at Pizza Hut like you can in the USA. Like it has everything for everybody, right?

You can go there and enjoy yourself without the worry of danger. And you'll create a memorable experience and possibly more important than that. You're going to come home to whatever city or country you're from and you're going to endorse your trip to your friends and it's going to become contagious and people are going to start traveling the world more often

because the world is an incredible place to explore. Where is a place you would live, not United States or Canada? Yeah, you know, family holds me in Canada. You're taking them with you. Yeah, all of my family? Yeah, where would you go? Shoot. Like for a lifetime, I couldn't even picture.

But, like, I mean, for a year or two? Yeah. Man. So even that stuff. My wife was born in the Philippines. She came to Canada when she was like one or two years old. You go to Manila? I would probably go to Manila because I think our kids should learn the family

heritage. Yeah. My mom's from Liverpool, which I got to experience for the first time, like two weeks ago, I went there to see where she was from. Your mom's a scousa. Yeah, she's a scouser.

Oh, wow. That was incredible because that's something I've always wanted to do, and I just went. So I think I would love for them to see, before anything else, I'd love for them to see the heritage of both sides of mom and dad.

Oh, that's cool. Has your daughter been to Liverpool? No, no. I was the only one that went. No. You got to do that. Yeah. My kids haven't been to the Philippines yet either.

You got to do Manila or Liverpool. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's on my list. That's why it's Chris Must List. It's a never-ending list of things I want to see. All the musts. Yeah, it's exactly it.

It's actually basic, right? My name's Chris. It's a must list. And I have a book at home where I just keep adding to it. You can tell me about this incredible feather that you found in a certain parking in Alaska. I'll write it down. And one day I have to go try to look for a feather. in that park.

And Instagram is like an incredible resource. I'll see a waterfall somewhere and I'll be like, or the northern lights in Greenland or Iceland. I saw on Instagram and the next day I went on an airplane and go see the same experience because I saw an Instagram post. What place exceeded your expectations? Greenland, Greenland. Greenland and for what I like, Greenland and Iceland,

because you don't normally associate cold weather with vacation. Right. but Namibia. For those watching Namibia exceeded every expectation because when I landed and touched down on this little tiny tarmac with this small airplane,

there's no immigration that stamps you. It's actually the place where you get like your food at the airport, you buy a pop or a sandwich. They stamp your passport. That's to show you how small this place is.

And so I come out in Namibia and I'm, it's desert. I don't see any. anybody. No taxis, no nothing. And I had to really wait to find somebody and I'm like, what do I do? They're like, there's one taxi. You can wait. And I sat there with so much regret looking like I didn't do no research, but I planned two weeks in Namibia and I'm looking and all it is is desert. So I rented a vehicle there and I spent two weeks driving through Namibia and I had the most incredible solo driving picking up hitchhikers every step along the way.

but had the most incredible trip of my life in Namibia's my favorite country in the world. And when I landed on that tarmac, never in a million years. I was instant regret, but I was able to change it around. And still one of my, well, it is my favorite country. What did you do for two weeks?

Drive. So it's the most, like, desolate place in the world. So you can drive for like 12 hours and not even see one person. But wildlife exists. And you can stop by the side of the street and see elephants and drafts and just sit there with them.

Whereas other countries, it's not the same. You'd have tourists with big cameras and Yapin and in Africa. These are wild animals that you can just, you're in the desert and just like, shut everything off, open the sunroof, open your window, and sit with giraffes. Incredible.

In the Himba tribe, for those that don't know, like National Geographic, they're the tribe that gets the red clay and they're like really, really red. And they live in the desert. So this clay stops dirt and bugs and mosquitoes. And they put clay in their hair. So the women all have like red, thick clay hair.

And I was able to like get into a tribe. We didn't speak the same language. I was by myself. I came with some gifts. And I was spending a couple days with this tribe living the old fashioned way that they used to live. And I got to watch them put mud on. And like these are the experiences that that I live for in the

was just incredible. I can't wait to return, but I promised myself I will not go unless the whole family is going to come with me. Oh, you gotta take the fan. Everybody, if you're, guys, Namibia, my personal guarantee, if you like outdoors and adventure, no crime, no big cities,

there's a German influence there. So during the gold rush, they set up all these German villages that are ghost towns now, but incredible if you like that kind of adventure, because for me, it was just like everything I could ever ask for, in a country for me, Namibia's number one.

Have you ever taken part in the local drug culture? Like doing drugs? Yeah. No. I'm not, like I've never even done marijuana in my life. Oh, really? No. Never drank a beer, never had a coffee.

So there's quite a few things I've never, I've never done, yeah. You're fully sober? No, I drank alcohol, but never had a beer. You never had beer? Which a lot of people find. That's hilarious. The whiskey or rum or tequila, I'll drink. You never tried a beer?

No. tried drugs. Nepal, I tried the honey, but I had, like, I don't think it was the real honey. I think it was just, like, marketed towards tourists to try the honey. But no. And what do you think that is? I mean, such an openness for culture and experience, but then someone's, like, want to bud light and you're like, man.

Yeah, I don't know about beer. I don't know. It's just never, never excited me, the thought of it, the smell of it, the look of it, the way I see people on the side of the street drinking it. All those are reasons why for me, I've just always always. abstained from it. Oh, that's so interesting. And marijuana as well.

I never even tried a cigarette. I know I have an addictive personality, so it would only take once for me to try something like that. And then it would be a part of my life, which I'm okay with it not being a part of my life. No, I think that makes complete sense. Like, I'm not a smoker. I don't, I don't really do drugs,

to be completely honest with you. But there's a curiosity that I have. So I won't say, you know, I've seen documentaries about certain things like licking a frog and stuff. Yeah, Gambo. and I think West Africa. I think that's different for me.

If given the opportunity in the right circumstance, I would lick a frog. I guess that's what I'm looking at. Not necessarily drugs for the desire to get high and feel something, but more for a cultural excursion to say, like, oh, I'm doing ibogaine

in this cultural region where this is a common practice. I can't say I'm opposed to it because I've eaten some ridiculous food that I never thought I would eat either. You've had some rats. Yeah, I've eaten rats. And worse than that as well, right?

So, yeah. If it's something that the locals do as part of their daily thing, then for sure I would try. Grossest food you ever had? Yeah, those rats were tough. But I mean, insects, worms, I wouldn't call them gross because that would be insulting to the people that served me. But my general rule of thumb, if I'm offered something, I'm going to eat it. Sure. If it's something that they eat, I'm going to eat it.

I've heard blood is good. I've had blood. Like specific tribes, I think like the massage. do like a lot of like blood really dishes they do blood draining yeah and i've heard it's good i didn't have blood there but i've had blood cobra blood uh in vietnam but you know in regards to the messai there's certain times they're not just drinking blood all the time there's a certain time yeah it's like a ritual thing yeah yeah and like but i've heard it's it's good like to like take a goat and like our bodies are probably not meant for it like not it wouldn't affect us it would

affect us in a negative way. Our bodies is in Westerners? Yeah. They're not only climatized to the environment, their bodies are accustomed to it. Sure. Just like those mud cookies. When I ate it, I was violently sick, but they eat them every day without a problem. Interesting.

And why do you have cobra blood? Yeah, I don't know. Stupid tourist, right? I ate a cobra, and part of it is drinking the blood as well. Is that like a part of the practice? It's a Vietnamese meal. Yeah, stupid tourist type thing. And they're served together.

Yeah. You take a shot of the blood with a shot of alcohol. I don't remember what the alcohol was. And you eat the cobra. It tastes horrible. There was no meat to it. It was just, I think it was, you know, certain foods are invented for tourism where others,

like when I ate in South Sudan, the rats, that's what they eat. Right. There's no tourists going there. But in Vietnam, I'm pretty sure the cobra is a tourist type thing. Oh, interesting. And do you still like to partake in this sort of like tourist activity? Because you're like, this is also a part of it.

It depends what it is. Sure. But seldom. Right. You know, if I think I'm going to be in one country once, I love museums. I really do. Me too. But I don't want to bring my camera in.

I want to, and I'm very quick in a museum. I can't stand in front of a Picasso and sit and wonder about what he was thinking about when he painted. I want to look. I want to go to the next one. And I enjoy it in a very fast-paced way. So I don't bring my camera. I figure there's too many people already on the.

the internet doing that. But I enjoy the touristy type things to a certain extent. Some of the stuff I don't. Like Thailand, being on elephants when it's all fake, that doesn't excite it. Yeah, it also feels a little exploitative. It's very. Yeah. This is like going to Amsterdam.

You're like, I got a prostitute. Yeah. It's like, well, I don't know if he has to do all. Or wood shoes. Yeah. Or the red light. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah. Wow. Well, Chris, thank you so much, brother. I really appreciate this conversation. This is interesting. It definitely revived. like a little spark in me that wants to travel. I've taken like a little bit of time off the road because my son was born.

Oh, congratulations. Thank you. I appreciate that. But I have that itch. Yes. And I just love people and I love being around people. And this conversation has gotten me. Africa. Have you been to Africa?

My wife and I had plans prior to her becoming pregnant. Yeah. Remember in Namibia. The place that I think we looked at was, I might have been southern Kenya. I forget exactly. We wanted to do a safari. That was like... Kenya's great.

It was a great starter place to go as well. That's kind of what I figured. I was like, I had been to Tunisia. I've only been to like northern Africa. And I had a... I really want to go to like central Africa. And I figured Nairobi is like one of the most like metropolitan cities.

I think it's the best starting point for sure. And I feel like it would be like a good or like somewhere in Nigeria like Lagos or Abuja like as a, you know, a place to go that feels like it's generally. kind of modernized and, you know, the food will be good and the water will be clean and there won't be any issues. But then I'm like, I want to go to Malawi. You know what I mean? I have friends that are, that are Malawin and they're from a long way and I'm like, I want to go, I want to go there. The world is so big. There's so many places to go. I know. I know. So next time we sit down, you're going to tell me you've checked a few things off your list.

Absolutely. A couple more. I think, I think like East Africa, Central East Africa would be, that'd be on my list. So hopefully next time we sit down. I'll have some stories for you. I'm writing it down on my list just to double check in with you. Absolutely. It's been a great opportunity. Thank you for allowing me in your campsite here and I'm excited. Let's do it again soon. Yes, thank you very much. Thanks, Chris.