- If you don't listen, then I'll.
(Mike laughing)
- You handle your babies by the legs?
(upbeat music) - Swing them.
- This interview was hilarious.
I have suddenly transformed more handsome.
(Mike and Mpisi laughing)
And at the end, Mpisi asks me a few questions as well.
- Why do you make yourself very flowery?
(Mike and Mpisi laughing)
- [Mike] Grab your paper and pencils, because Mpisi
from the Ndebele Tribe is about to drop some knowledge.
- That's a problem.
(Mike laughing)
(upbeat music)
Hey, welcome to rural Zimbabwe, near Zambia, actually,
and we're gonna meet a man named Mpisi.
He's a local medicine man,
and also we've heard is a character.
We're here to ask him some questions.
We are rolling, beep, we're good to go.
Mr. Mpisi, we're all the way out here in Zimbabwe
in what's the name of this village?
- Kompisi village.
- [Mike] Kompisi village? - Yes.
- So I've got some questions.
So I've got a YouTube page, like on the internet.
- Okay.
- With many followers, and I'm wondering
if you could give any advice, what would you say?
- Try to acquire good skills of survival,
not depending on the outside world
or on the civilized world, which make them handicapped.
Then they don't think, they count with gadgets,
and forget the indigenous knowledge.
- What's wrong with the civilized world?
- They make you stupid, they control you.
That knowledge doesn't work properly.
Learn those skills to produce your own food,
and learn good medicine,
which makes you healthy and young always.
- I like your attitude.
- If you don't listen, then I.
(Mike laughing)
- If I'm on my gadgets too much, I get. (clicks tongue)
- Yes, so that, leave them
so that you make some ways of surviving.
- Mpisi, you are full of zest, full of fire.
If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?
- 79 years.
- You're 79 years old? - 12th February.
- What's the secret?
How do you stay 79 and still stay-
- Good food, organic food, always happy, no problems.
- You grow your own food, right?
- Corn, sorghum, millet, pumpkins, watermelons,
peanuts, and beans, that's what we produce,
and we feed those who live in cities.
- [Mike] Yeah.
- Who can't work.
- What do you think of city food?
- A lot of chemicals, I don't like.
- You're antichemicals?
- I am a naturalist.
- Out here, there's no chemicals.
- No, no, no, I don't like you people to use chemicals.
We use natural food. - Yeah.
- Which heals.
Can I tell you?
- Yeah.
- This is produced by chemicals.
- It is, it's very true.
- You are putting chemicals in your body.
When you say it, you don't care what is happening.
You are saying I'm wearing a good shirt.
- Yeah.
- Without, that's a problem
(Mike laughing)
that you are practicing witchcraft
on your body yourself with your mind.
So people don't think about that.
- Mpisi, but they tell me it's breathable,
and it's got air wicking pockets, and it's sweat proof.
- What about this?
- I mean, that's just gazelle, right?
That's just one gazelle skin.
And this, this is a truck tire, right?
From rubber from a truck.
- Good, yeah, good, yeah.
- Yeah, but this is chemicals.
- No, look, look, look,
we know how to treat this in order not to be chemicals.
That's why it's wearing off.
First of all, we boil with salt.
- You boil this with salt? - With salt.
- Why?
- To neutralize those chemicals in here.
- To get rid of the nasty chemicals?
- Yeah, that's what we like.
- Okay, what are some other things you do
to help the body, let's say?
- I eat a lot of herbs.
- Eat a lot of herbs?
- Herbs.
- Ah. - Yes,
I know anti-aging herbs.
Whatever you need for bodies, that's my life.
Remember, in our African region,
we use nature, we depend on nature for food,
for medicinal properties, for wild fruits.
You can't survive without natural resources.
We need them, that's why we are connected with nature.
- I think that's really important
for humans is to be in harmony with nature.
We move to the cities, we distance ourselves,
we get afraid of the dirt we walk on,
all these different things, the weather,
the animals, and then we become unhappy and we wonder why.
But we're so disconnected from where we came from.
- That's the problem with humans,
the problem with cities, especially with city people,
they don't know happiness.
- Tell me more.
- There is a totality of insanity.
There is no respect for each other, yeah?
You know, even if something's happening to you,
they can't come and help you.
How can a society live like that?
- I don't know.
- If you live here, when you make noise,
everyone rushes there to come and help.
- What do you think is the secret to happiness?
How do you be happy in life?
- Come together with other people.
Be together and enjoy.
Where there's food, put it in there,
and tell everybody, whether you don't know them, huh?
Those people will take you to their homes.
Even if they have got one goat,
they slaughter it for us for that happiness to enjoy that.
That's their pride in us, in Africa, in rural country,
but in cities, one man for himself, they don't share.
- You're saying community, being together?
- Community, being together, oneness.
- What do you think about the cities?
- I shall never live there in my lifetime.
Even when I'm dead, they should not take me to the mortuary.
No, there is no peace, there is no love in the cities.
- Why do you think people are so unhappy, besides community?
(reflective music)
- They have got a lot of stresses, which are regeneratives.
They work too much, they want money, money, money.
You know, they're very busy with their life.
They don't rest even their bodies.
They don't have a social life to interact with other people.
That's the problem again.
- So then what do you think about money?
Is money important or not?
- Money is money,
but human beings are taking advantage of money, huh?
- Mm-hmm.
- To destroy their lives.
They overspend, some, they go and drink,
abuse their bodies drinking a lot.
You're killing yourself.
Let that money help you as a tool of survival.
You can even take that money and buy chickens.
- So make more chickens?
- Your eggs, your everything from them.
Don't waste it, use it wisely
by investing, having cows, everything.
It will help you rather than to just to plunder.
- Yeah, what is it like living with animals?
Like you have your own animals,
goats and donkeys and chickens,
but also there's big animals on the outside.
Just actually down the road,
we saw elephants just in the forest.
What's the relationship
the tribe has with these wild animals?
- You cannot talk about wild animals
without talking about people.
- Okay.
- Animals enjoy us, they love us,
but we are doing a lot of problems to them.
We are not socially friendly.
People spoils them.
What is the poison for animal is our food we eat
as human beings.
- Cookies, crackers, chemicals, yeah.
- You are poisoning them.
They change their behavior,
then you are saying they are there,
but you are the cause of that.
When you are moving into the city,
it's an area where animals live,
you are blocking their movement.
You are disturbing with machines and so forth.
They like to say, "Hey, move out, it's our homes."
And then you are saying they're the problem,
then you make a lot of noise.
No, let them survive their way of living.
That's the problem with humans, problem with cities.
They don't care, which is wrong.
Just leave them.
They should live like they were living.
Like that, they won't have problems.
(lively music)
- That was a hell of an interview,
and honestly, it just gets better.
Mpisi and I walk around the village,
he shows me his animals, his medicinal plants,
and begins asking me all sorts of questions.
(lively music continues)
So we sit down again to flip the interview around.
This time, he'll be asking me the questions,
but first, how you can travel with me.
I have created something and I am stoked,
more stoked than when we found that crocodile
in the jungles of Congo and I got to trade it
for a bed of the Pygmy Tribe.
That was awesome, but this is equally as awesome.
It's called Tribal Rights.
It's a one week adventure travel retreat that I made
as the thing that I wish I had 15 years ago
when I was lost and confused and stuck,
and didn't know how to start adventures.
People always assume I lived
this adventurous life my entire life,
no, false. (people singing)
For most of my life,
I was afraid to do this exact thing right now,
speak on camera, as well as travel, bat shit terrified.
I was a mouse, I was a scaredy cat, and now through travel
and through some lessons I picked up along the way,
I'm an Emmy award-winning adventure travel host,
living this crazy life that I can only dream of,
but it's because I've picked up some things along the way.
What I want to do is give it all back to you
in one week in Mexico.
If you're interested, look in the description of this video
or the pinned comment to learn more.
I cannot wait to see you in one of my favorite countries,
Mexico, in the jungles, just like this.
Back to the show.
Boom, now the questions are gonna get hard.
- Okay.
(Mike laughing)
You've got some fur, I've got some fur.
(Mpisi laughign)
- Do you have one?
- A hat like that one?
No, I don't have one.
Do you have any extras?
- Yeah.
- Maybe you can trade, we can trade hats.
- I don't wear caps, this is the best cap.
- Too many chemicals, right?
All right, hold on.
- Ah, look how handsome he is.
- I have suddenly transformed more handsome.
How do I look, do I look good?
- Wonderful.
- Wonderful. (laughs)
Mpisi, you're a very wise man, by the way.
- Oh, thank you for that.
- One thing I wanted to ask is
do you have any questions for me?
What is your- - The first thing.
- Yeah?
- Why do you make yourself very flowery?
(both laughing)
To be flowery man?
Or is it for attraction or what?
- Oh, it's a really funny question.
The interesting is I don't even know
if people understand why they get tattoos.
Like for me, I think it's a mixture of a few things.
This is 25 hours, 20 hours, this is 10 hours, right?
Of zzz, pain all of the time.
So I think for some people we get these subconsciously,
like in our brain without knowing,
to go through something tough.
- Painful.
- I think so, I think that human beings need challenge,
they need pain, they need something.
They need a bit of suffering to be able
to become their full self.
- Yes.
- Maybe people have it too easy.
- Pain is two ways, it's good or wrong.
Every young man, when they grow, they should feel pains.
You could even use and knob carry, a big one like this.
(Mike laughing)
- Like this?
- It should not pain.
Now, culturally, when you look at pain,
you can be angry and you can do something evil,
but if you pass through pains, you stop there,
said, "I've dealt that."
That's my vector, through pains.
But pains, they can mold you to be what you are in future.
Through those, you start the pain.
It's a matter of latter of life for where you are from
to the next life where you need to go through.
You can need the pains so that you can,
in certain circumstances,
you pass through them if you've got pain.
In our culture, even babies,
they handle them with legs like this.
- You handle your babies by the legs?
- Swing them, as if like you're dropping them.
They should learn how to differentiate a pain and fear.
- I think trust is something in there
that's very important too, right?
- Yes.
- Because if you don't have trust,
then the pain and fear is much bigger.
But if you learn that, yeah, so sometimes controlled-
- They're used.
- Controlled pain can be a good way to build strength.
- You learn how to control pain and fear.
That's what is very essential in life.
That's why I was asking you if you have this painful,
you know, you can stand wherever in life,
because pains which happened in your body,
they are more than than what we are.
- So go through more pain
so you become more resilient, we say.
- More resilience.
- Wise words.
Okay, what's the next question?
- The next question is-
- For me?
- Why coming and enjoying the world,
trying to document the world?
- Why do I try to document the world?
A lot of things in this world are misunderstood.
People say snakes are slimy, they're dangerous, right?
These false ideas of how dangerous the world is,
and I started traveling because when I was young,
I realized that all that's not true.
And the more I traveled,
the more I learned that it was all fake.
It's all lies told by people who don't know any better.
And so now it's my passion, my mission
to go to places, countries, meet people.
So I love coming to places like this to learn myself,
but also mostly teach by doing, by showing, by meeting,
how beautiful and safe and interesting the world is.
And then once you understand the world's not as dangerous
as you think it is, it allows you to be more free.
- Now you are passing to leave a pyramid
of good history in this world before you go
so that they understand,
think wisely to connect to themselves.
- The world needs to be more connected.
- You are not doing for yourself, for your country,
but for the world, for everybody.
- That's the plan.
(rooster crowing)
The chicken has a question.
(both laughing)
Well, Mr. Mpisi, you've got
a lot of people watching right now.
Anything to say to the world?
- Thank you, please, let's be responsible.
Live in harmony with nature.
Nature always love us, but we do wrong things.
We destroy, we chemicalize, we deplete one thing.
We don't want to apologize to wrong things we do to nature.
Remember, those who read the scripture,
God said men should care for nature.
We should also care for nature as an instruction for God,
who live in harmony with God.
Outside that, we're committing a lot of sins to nature.
- Yes, we are, my friend.
Wise words.
- Thank you very much.
- Mpisi from the Shona Tribe here in Zimbabwe.
Thank you, if you liked it, drop a comment below.
The wisdom, the wisdom you've got, man,
the world should know.
(lively music)