From the Rich to the Poor (or, What I Learned in Africa)
Published on - March 1st, 2011 (by J.D. Roth) After 36 hours of travel (followed by twelve hours of sleep), Kris and I are back from vacation. For the past three weeks, we’ve been exploring southern Africa. With a tour group, we visited South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and Zambia. We had a great time, and we learned a lot. It was well worth the expense. In fact, I loved what I saw so much, that I’m eager to return. (On my next trip, I’ll probably aim for Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania.)
Because it’s now ingrained in my being, I spent the entire trip looking at things through the lens of personal finance. This wasn’t tough. We saw a lot of wealth and poverty.
From the Rich to the Poor
On our first day in South Africa, as the tour bus set out from our hotel in Johannesburg to nearby Pretoria, our tour guide interrupted his narrative to say something strange.
“Before we go too far,” Brian said, “I want to thank you: Thank you for coming to Africa. Tourism is the biggest transfer of money from the rich to the poor in the world. For every seven people who come to South Africa, roughly one job is created. So, thank you.”
I thought this was odd at the time, so I pulled out my notebook and jotted down the quote verbatim. (When I travel, I always carry a small notebook to capture quotes and impressions.) During the course of our three weeks in southern Africa, I kept coming back to this notion, to the idea that tourism isn’t exploitive (as I’ve always believed), but actually beneficial to countries and communities.
Brian wasn’t the only one to mention this. Several of our local guides brought up the subject too. On our tour of Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner for nearly eighteen years, our guide echoed Brian’s statement. “For every six tour buses to visit Robben Island,” he told us, “one job is created. Thank you for visiting.” And on the final afternoon of our trip, we took a tour through the “informal settlement” in Langa Township. (“Informal settlement” is a polite term for a squatter camp or shantytown.) Our local guide — who lives in Langa Township — expressed heartfelt thanks.
The Victoria Falls Hotel is gorgeous.
Despite assurances from Brian and the local guides, I felt guilty a lot of the time. I felt ashamed that I have so much and the people I met had so little. Yes, they were happy and friendly and giving, but consider this calculus:
- We spent three nights in the Victoria Falls Hotel, where the average room costs $618 per night. I’m not sure what our actual cost was — it was probably much less — because we booked the entire trip as a package through a tour company. If we’d paid full price, though, we might have expected to pay $1854 for our time in Victoria Falls.
- According to our local guide, minimum wage in Victoria Falls is currently $250 a month. And right now, nobody can afford to pay that, so workers are only being given a living allowance — enough to buy bare necessities.
So, three nights in this posh hotel cost the same as seven months of local wages. Worse, most Zimbabweans don’t even have a job. Unemployment in the country runs at nearly 80%. 80%!! One in five people has a regular job. Perhaps you can see why, despite our guides’ gratitude, I often felt ashamed to be there.
The Open Market
On Valentine’s Day, my favorite day of the trip, our group experienced three cultural outings.
In the morning, we visited the Victoria Falls open market, where local residents sell hand-made jewelry, rugs, statues, and knick-knacks. Before we entered the market, Brian gave us a piece of advice: “Think of this as a cultural experience, not a shopping opportunity,” he said. “And don’t just give these folks money. They don’t want your handouts. They want to earn a living.”
I heeded Brian’s advice, and did my best to learn more about the vendors I spoke with. At one stall, Joshua taught me about haggling. He explained how the process works, and where you might use it. (You don’t haggle at the grocery store, but you can at the fresh food market.)
I asked how much a carved hippo cost. “Thirty-five dollars,” Joshua said. He quickly added, “But that’s just my starting price. Now you make an offer.” I eventually bought the hippo for $12. I felt guilty for not paying $35.
A fellow called Moreblessing (no joke) talked to me about how his family produced and sold the items he had on display. (His brother had a stall right next to him.)
In Zimbabwe, names are the same as ours — Francis, Richard, Jacqueline, etc. — except when they’re not. Some people have African names, as you might expect, and others have names derived from English nouns and adjectives: Reason, Accurate, Blessed, Moreblessing, and Garlic (also no joke). We didn’t meet anyone named Precious, though.
Several of the fellows (I only spoke with men) told me that they needed to sell something because this was the only way they could get money to put food on the table. I asked Brian if this were true. “It is,” he said. “Some of these guys may only make one or two sales per week.”
I bought too many carved hippos, and I wish I could have bought more. No, I don’t need a dozen carved hippos — it’s just Stuff — but I wanted to help these people. (Some members of our group traded their clothes and shoes instead of using money. Brian says that in many ways, this is more useful to the vendors.)
The Primary School
During the afternoon of our cultural day, we visited the Chinotimba Primary School, where about 25 children sang and danced for us. When they finished, we had a chance to chat with them. (English is the primary language in the countries we visited, another remnant of the colonial past.) One boy was fascinated by my camera, so I let him borrow it; he ran around the room, snapping photos of all his friends.
Before we left the school, we had a chance to donate school supplies. Kris had brought some pens, pencils, small notebooks, and inflatable globes. I was unprepared. I hadn’t expected to be so moved by the visit. I pulled aside Francis, our local guide (who had attended this school when he was a boy and now has a daughter who’s a student here), and showed him the books I was carrying in my bag. “Could the school use these at all?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” he said.
“Even these?” I asked, holding up four digest-sized comic books I’d brought to read on the plane.
Francis laughed. “Yes,” he said. “They’ll love them. The kids know who Superman is.” So, there’s a grade school in Zimbabwe that has some comic books from my collection now. The school principal, who collected the money and supplies our group donated, seemed touched and grateful.
Photo taken by a boy at Chinotimba Primary School.
Back on the bus, many tour members talked about how sad it was that these kids had so little. Brian tried to squash this sentiment.
“Look at the children,” he said. “Are these kids unhappy? I’ll wager that you’ll see the children are happy. They’re happier than any of the children in South Africa. Why? Because everyone is equal. They all have the same Stuff. It’s not one kid has an iPod and another one doesn’t. They’ve got nothing, and we know that. But they’ve all got nothing. They’re all the same.”
Brian wasn’t arguing that it’s good for these people to live in poverty. He was trying to make it clear that it’s possible to be happy even without a lot of Stuff, and that if you give something to one person and not another, you sow the seeds of envy.
Dinner at Home
In the evening, we made a quick trip to a nearby food market, where we spent a few minutes wandering the stalls, looking at the items for sale. (I found two women who were selling used boxes! Because my family owns a small box factory here in Portland, I asked to snap their photo.)
After this brief detour, we split into small groups. Each group went to the home of a local resident, where we were served a typical Zimbabwean meal. (Actually, it was a little atypical: We were given the equivalent of both lunch and dinner. Plus, our meal contained more meat than the families usually eat.)
Kris and I dined with Blessed and her family, which owns two homes on adjoining properties. “We are a family of sixteen,” Blessed told us, “and we are still expanding.” She says that “uncles, aunties, misses, cousins” live in these two houses.
Blessed served us hominy in peanut butter, pumpkin leaves in peanut sauce, and sadza with chicken stew. Sadza is a cornmeal pap; it’s Zimbabwe’s staple food. In fact, Blessed’s family eats so much sadza that they buy a 50kg (~110 pound) bag of cornmeal every month. (I think the “mielie pap” we saw in Botswana and South Africa is the same as sadza, but I can’t swear to it.) Fish is expensive, so it isn’t eaten often, and meat seems to be used as a flavoring agent, not a main ingredient.
As we ate, we talked with Blessed and her two helpers, which included a friend and a cousin. Blessed told us that her family is actually fairly well off compared to many in the area. Doreen, who is eighteen, is nearly finished with high school. She just got her exam results. Because she did well, she’ll soon be going to university, and then (she hopes) to medical school. So, in contrast to a lot of what we’d seen on this cultural day, this family seemed to be on a path toward relative prosperity.
This six-minute video mostly features footage from our cultural day.
On the bus ride from Botswana to Zimbabwe, Francis, our local guide, talked about marriage customs in his tribe. Just two generations ago, it was common for men to have several wives. This still happens, but less often, especially in the city. Still, some of the old ways continue. When a man is ready for marriage, for example, he pays a bride price to the father of the woman he intends to marry. This is paid in cattle. (Francis actually called this a dowry, but that’s technically not correct.)
When Francis was married, he paid nine cows plus $700 for his wife. Our bus driver Ernest paid seven cows for his wife.
If a young man can’t pay the bride price, he pays in installments. If the man is unable to pay the full bride price by the time his own daughters get married, he has to use half of their bride wealth to repay the outstanding debt. And if the debt doesn’t get repaid in his lifetime, the responsibility falls to the man’s oldest son. In this way, it’s possible for complex chains of bride debt to exist.
Francis feels lucky — he has three daughters, which means he will eventually be a wealthy man. (In theory.) One day, he’ll have a lot of cattle.
“What do you do with the cattle?” one member of our group asked. “Are they for meat? Do you use them for milk?”
“In our African culture,” Francis said, “your cows are your bank. You can’t eat your bank. You have to save them.”
“What about people who live in the city?” another member of our group asked. “Where do they keep their cattle?”
Brian, the tour manager, explained that in places where it’s impossible to keep actual cattle (such as Johannesburg), the bride price has become abstracted. Some pay it in gold coins called Kruggerands. Others buy “bonds” (Brian’s word, not mine) that represent the cows. Brian says he’s been in homes where the certificates representing the cows are framed and displayed on the wall, like a stock certificate.
An informal settlement (or “shantytown”) in Soweto, Johannesburg.
Informal Settlements
We ended our African adventure in Cape Town, a vibrant city on the southwestern tip of the continent. We took the cable car to the top of Table Mountain, walked along the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront (which is packed with shops and restaurants), and wandered through the Company’s Garden and Greenmarket Square.
On our final afternoon, we went on a three-hour tour of the local townships. To quote Wikipedia:
During the Apartheid era, blacks were evicted from properties that were in areas designated as “white only” and forced to move into segregated townships. Separate townships were established for each of the three designated non-white race groups (blacks, coloreds, and Indians)…
Townships sometimes have large informal settlements nearby. Despite their origins in apartheid South Africa, today the terms township, location, and informal settlements are not used pejoratively.
Townships are permanent communities. As part of a township, there might be one or more “informal settlements”. You may know of informal settlements by less flattering terms, such as squatter camps or shantytowns.
We spent most of our time in Langa Township, where a young woman nicknamed Sugar (who lives in Langa) described how people work and live. As in any community, there are different levels of wealth in Langa. Some folks have relatively nice homes, with yards and garages and fences; we were told these belong to people who have university degrees: teachers, nurses, doctors and lawyers. These homes would seem small in the U.S., but are positively luxurious compared to the shacks in the informal settlements just a few hundred meters down the road.
Sugar led us on a short walking tour of some of the government-built housing in Langa. We were able to see two homes. I didn’t see much of the second because I stopped to talk with a girl in the first house (I couldn’t understand her African name, I’m afraid). I started by asking her about her life, but she was actually more curious about me. Where did I come from? Did I like Africa? And so on.
I wanted to know more about this girl; she wanted to know more about me.
I learned so much from this three-hour tour that I can’t possibly share it all here. Besides, you’re probably bored after reading this far. Instead, I’ve compiled this 9-minute video that features Sugar and Sophia (our guides) talking about the daily lives of township residents, especially from a financial perspective. I’ve done my best to annotate things to head off confusion.
This video is the cornerstone of this entire post.
I wish more of our trip could have been focused on meeting the people. While others appreciated the birds and the animals and the spectacular scenery, I got so much out of our brief interactions with actual South Africans and Zimbabweans.
Guilt is Not Productive
Because this trip was arranged through a tour company, there were a couple of obligatory shopping stops: one at a jewelry company and one at an ostrich farm. Kris and I bought nothing at either place (except pellets to feed the ostriches). Neither of us is interested in jewelry or ostrich leather goods.
Ostriches are dangerous — unless you ply them with food pellets.
Others might have liked to buy something, but didn’t feel good doing so. “I’d feel guilty spending $320 on an ostrich-skin purse,” one woman said at dinner one night. “Especially after the poverty we witnessed in Zimbabwe. I’d rather give $300 to a family in Zimbabwe and then buy a $20 purse at Goodwill.”
As I’ve mentioned already, at times I felt guilty too. It’s hard not to feel guilty when you’re staying at a hotel where the average room runs $618 a night — and meanwhile, half a mile from this posh palace, men and women are scratching to make ends meet.
What is my moral obligation to these people? Do I have one? Should I feel guilty for spending money on tourism? Or, as our guides suggested, should I be comforted by the fact that I’m participating in a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor? What productive ways can I help aside from just throwing money at the problem?
I don’t have answers to these questions.
Ultimately, however, I’ve realized that guilt is not productive. Guilt doesn’t accomplish anything. I can’t change who I am or the circumstances I’ve been born into. I’ve made the most of what I have: I’ve been lucky, and I’ve worked hard to build upon that luck. I can’t change this, and I can’t regret it.
Instead, I feel like it’s my responsibility to do something with this hand that I’ve been dealt. Do what? I don’t know — and I’m not sure I need to know right now. As I travel, I’m becoming more aware of the world around me, and I feel like maybe there’s something I can contribute to make it a better place. I’m not sure what that something is, but I’m willing to be patient until I discover it.
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@el Nerdo:
“While tourism transfers wealth to poor countries, it is also predicated on the poverty of those countries.”
This is untrue – most tourism is based on environmental, wildlife, historical and cultural destinations. Yes, in some (minority) cases cultural sites can mean things like visiting the Massai, but it also mean things like visiting Versailles – hardly predicated on poverty.
I think researching and patronizing well-run “community based tourism” sites in your destination and staying in homestays are good ways to at least make a go at responsible tourism.
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JD, maybe you can consider the people from the settlements like to see visitors? It is quite human to be curious and want to see you, as well. I’m guessing the girl had a great time talking to you and getting a fresh take on things.
People have pride. Reaffirming a person’s worth as a person, allowing them the right to try to be a productive person, and telling them you value the time you spent with them is a great gift. It doesn’t feed stomachs but it does feed souls. Don’t let a soul wither.
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Haven’t had time to read the other comments, but Peter Singer’s book “The Life You Can Save” addresses your ethical questions.
I’m in the camp that firmly believes we have a moral imperative to do what we can to help other people to our utmost, i.e., to our personal limits of happiness and comfort. It’s why I’m not sure I’ll have my own biological kid; I could adopt instead. It’s the main reason I want to get rich–so I can give it away.
I see some people mentioning NGOs. I worked in a developing country for a while, and I can say from firsthand experience that a lot of NGOs and international development projects (including those by UN organizations) aren’t that effective. Singer’s book discusses GiveWell, which is an organization that specifically attempts to measure the efficacy of different charities. I think it makes some odd assumptions and sometimes doesn’t go far enough, but it’s an excellent place to start.
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Your trip sounds like an amazing experience. I am always in awe of any culture I am able to experience first hand. Even though you may not be able to contribute directly to those individuals you saw on your travels, it should open your eyes to those here in our own country who are struggling financially. Working in the public school system I see first hand how children, even as young as 7, are responsible for taking care of their families.
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JD, the reason why travel like that feels exploitative is because it’s based on inequality. As Americans, we benefit from a blatantly unjust world economic system that allows us to live rich lives and travel halfway across the world for kicks, while many Africans die in abject poverty.
So YOU weren’t exploiting those people — you were just living your life. I’m sure the people you met appreciated your interest in their culture, your wonderful attitude, as well as your money. But the world we live in exploits those people, and you and I benefit.
That said, I totally agree that guilt is useless. It is negative, unjustified (you did nothing to create this situation, after all), and overwhelming. It’s better to care a bit less and do a bit more than to care so much that you feel paralyzed and hopeless.
PS, wonderful photos and trip report! Thank you for sharing your trip AND your thoughts.
And PPS, you may be interested in http://www.kiva.org, which allows you to lend money to small businesspeople like the ones you met.
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This is such a touching post. It reminded me of my honeymoon, which happened to be right after September 11, 2001. And given the hit to the travel industry, the people who welcomed us were very happy we visited and shared their financial hardships.
While our trip took us to the Caribbean, we still witnessed two classes of people. We had the opportunity to go to the marketplace and instead of haggling I chose to pay the higher price. Although it was more than I should have paid, I felt it was the right thing to do.
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what a beautiful trip, and your words are from the heart. I so enjoyed reading today’s post, I was almost in tears at some points. I have traveled to 30 countries, but have never been to Africa. Like you, I greatly enjoyed being invited into people’s homes – the visits offer a level of authenticity that the nice hotel or the comfortable transport cannot.
A note on a comment above: “While tourism transfers wealth to poor countries, it is also predicated on the poverty of those countries.”
I visited Iceland last summer, and spent over two weeks there (I also visited Greenland for the same amount of time). Whether the country is rich or poor – or emerging into a new economy (Greenland) or experiencing a set back (Iceland) tourism still creates the opportunities and the jobs. I felt this greatly while I was driving around Iceland, I was welcomed warmly and felt that I was contributing to the people’s emergence from what was a quick series of catastrophes.
Your post today awakened my desire to visit Africa someday. I still feel a little skittish about traveling there for safety reasons – were you with the tour guides / trusted activities at all times, or did you ever feel safe enough to wander about on your own?
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I’ve had exactly the same thoughts about money and the relative costs of things such a a night at the Marriott esp. as compared to what people make here in Poland.
I do get frustrated when visitors visit only the Marriott in downtown Warsaw and then say “how lovely it is here”. They’ve not seen anything. They don’t know the REAL Poland…
Thanks for the write up. I’m SOO glad you decided to go. Sometimes after such a visit you begin to realize how petty so many of our own desires are.
I’ve not read the comments yet, but in my own experience as an American living in a country that has huge numbers of very poor people…
“The best thing you can give them is a job.” Unfortunately giving a one time gift is so much easier.
Oh yeah…before you know it, giving to charity actually might be something you won’t mind doing!
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This post made me consider a few long held beliefs about tourism etc. that I was probably just wrong on (i.e. not wanting to visit countries with high levels of poverty through guilt)
J.D. – I have to say it’s of a far higher calibre than some of the usual staples that can be expected on a multi-author blog and is closer to journalism than the usual format. You seem to have reached a personal tipping point and hopefully this will manifest itself in your life in positive ways.
I’m not expecting you to make wholesale changes to the blog or your life (both are entirely up to you!), but it seems that you’ve come to the conclusion that there’s so much more that you could be working towards than articles about why it’s ok to own a nice car, or agonising over spending money on a holiday.
Why not start off with a blog posting on NGOs/not for profits that people might be interested in along the lines of your recent ‘international money sites’ roundup? I know that a lot of readers of this blog already view charity as an important part of their personal finances and who knows, it might even garner new readers?
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Touching! And you said it correctly, Guilt serves no purpose.
Thanks.
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All part of what happens when you start traveling the world and start seeing life with a different perspective. Often, in circumstances like this, ignorance is often bliss because then one would never have had to confront the harshness and inequalities that are present on this planet.
And, unfortunately, once you’ve experienced it the questions are many and the really good answers are few and far between. The world isn’t black and white and neither are the solutions. Be careful of the quick fixes [NGOs, I just support local (but oddly enough English speaking] people/businesses, etc]. Most of these are aimed at making us feel better about ourselves and may or may not address the major problems or help the people who really do need it. Keep in mind, it’s just as easy for us to be ashamed for our relative wealth as it is for us to excessively pat ourselves on the back for doing just enough to make ourselves feel better whether it made a real difference or not.
Ultimately, all most people want is just to get through life with some dignity and provide for their family. As such they are not looking for handouts but are just looking for equal opportunity and the ability to get paid a fair local wage for their services. Figuring out how to realistically implement that effectively with ones time/money is obviously the hard part.
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JD, thanks so much for a wonderfully inspiring post. I read your blog frequently and this is the first time I have commented. I was recently in Mexico and while I have seen the poverty there before, there is an image from this trip that I can’t get out of my head. There was a small boy picking up aluminum cans from the trash cans on the beach. We were at a relatively upscale beach club so the contrast between this boy and the club goers was quite striking. I gave the boy a small amount of money and he gave me the BIGGEST smile. That was the best moment of the trip. I look forward to your future posts on NGOs etc.
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This is why I love to travel especially internationally
You learn more about yourself than the country.
At least once a year I take my family on a international vacation. I love to hang with the locals. I may do one day of sightseeing and next I have to actually mingle with the locals. You get the full effect
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Another comment/question. Where did you hear that travel was simply exploitation?
Many of these countries have economies that NEED tourism. I’ve never thought of me exploiting them when I travel. Rather, I’ve considered that my lack of haggling skills (or my desire to not insult someone by offering too low), meant that they exploited me.
I just went to Egypt. Try haggling there. 1/3 of the original asking price may still be way too much. Since I’m a native English speaker, I can talk to the people selling in the shops easily. I love it. It is my favorite part of traveling. I try to return home with several email addresses and/or facebook friends.
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I give to Heifer International. It’s the best way I’ve found to give back to the world in a leg-up vs. hand-out way.
http://www.heifer.org/
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Hi, I just wanted to correct my earlier comment. Nairobi is in Kenya, not Nigeria.
DUH!!
Sorry.
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J.D.,
I’ve come back to this post several times over the past 24 hours because I need to digest bits of it one at a time.
Personally knowing both sides of the coin when it comes to poverty and the American middle class is my personal blessing and curse. It’s forever my struggle to better my position and deal with the guilt that ensues, the desire to help, and realizing I can never do enough.
But we can do something, we can all do *something*.
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I just wanted to add that this post is a shining example of why it’s largely the readers/community that keep me coming back to GRS.
The observations are so insightful and for the most part, respectful. Wonderful, just wonderful.
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I have so many different negative reactions to this post and the ensuing comments that honestly it is hard to know where to begin. But I’ll start with the big one: the generalization of all this as African. “Africa” is not a monolith. As a description it is as vague as someone from another continent saying hey I want to go to North America one day. Which North America? The United States? Haiti? El Salvador? And even beyond that, which parts of those countries are you interested in visiting? Rural or urban? West Coast/East Coast etc? Beach/mountains etc?. All are better descriptors and show you have an actual respect and appreciation for the diversity of the various people and cultures which comprise the 53 soon to be 54 different countries on the African continent and the 1000s of states and other regional bodies that these countries contain.
Two, and this comment is to JD specifically, there is something particular jarring about the photos you have chosen to share contrasted with photos you offered of previous travel experiences. Is it really your habit to photograph people in the various countries you live in? I personally would find it disconcerting if going about my day in Big City, USA someone thought I was enough of a spectacle to just photograph me. Whether you asked them or not, the fact that you felt the need to take them (and I might as as an observer and not a participant) seems like an interesting choice. Additionally, your soliloquy about their names seemed more than a little supercilious. Maybe rather than chuckling at the different sounds you might have asked what the name means and how it was chosen etc. I think you’d likely have gotten a better understanding of the people—if that’s what you were going for, rather than a few cheap shots.
While we’re talking about silly cultural rituals, my understanding is a certain group in North America, the Nacirema, also have interesting rituals around marriage. A man will often spend between 1/4th to ½ of their yearly salary to purchase a bauble to impress the girl and her friends. At times they get the money to purchase this from a cabal of local elders who set up a payment plan to allow them to make minimum payments for up to 30 years on this and ensuing wedding ceremony. If he dies before the debt is paid, she may be on the hook for the remaining funds! Other rituals of the Nacirema are described here https://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html.
While there is more I would quibble with (particularly the idea that you have to travel to “Africa” to see any of these issues), I think the reason you have to keep coming back to the idea that tourism isn’t exploitative is because that idea is fiction. There is nothing inherently great about tourism. Tourism can be both sustaining and crippling to the development of an economy. If you weren’t there to buy hippos, maybe the street vendors could be starting other businesses or farming etc. You want to talk about throwing money at a problem—our current subsidies to farmers leads them to export agricultural products where they flood the market of many African countries driving their own agricultural development underground. While there are certainly problems with the leadership of many African states, the truth is very few Western hands are clean when it comes to the state of African affairs and the idea that tourism is a salve to all of this is ridiculous. As an example, while sex tourists from Europe and Asia provide some financial benefit, they also help create and sustain an active black market and end up discouraging the education of many girls. While you may have limited effect on the macroeconomic effects of tourism as a whole, as a tourist, you have a great deal of influence in whether your trip provides a net benefit to the host nation or whether you ultimately are draining a nation of other capacities it should be building. One tip: if you actually want to invest as much of your dollars in the local economy as possible, taking a 12k luxury vacation sponsored by your alma mater, is clearly not the best way to do it. You aren’t going to make those connections with the local Zimbabweans and South Africans from the comfort of your $618 a night hotel and your air conditioned travel van where you get a brief snapshot of a few friendly “natives.”
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Very moving, J.D.
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In re “In this way, it’s possible for complex chains of bride debt to exist,” I find this absolutely fascinating, especially through the lens of American money matters that are spread culturally and through families/generations.
In re “I feel like it’s my responsibility to do something with this hand that I’ve been dealt,” you’re doing it. You’re doing it. Keep doing it.
Excellent work on this post, especially the videos.
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@119 WM –
JD has already discussed his problems with calling it “Africa”, although it may have been in his personal blog. He used it to simplify speaking since he would be visiting multiple countries. He said he’d also say he were going to visit Europe if he were going to multiple countries there.
As to your point about his use of pictures. Street photography is very popular, even for people wandering around and taking photos in their home city. In fact, a very popular photography blog had a post about street photography. http://www.digital-photography-school.com/getting-close-and-personal-11-tips-for-close-up-candid-street-photography?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DigitalPhotographySchool+%28Digital+Photography+School%29
And I’m not even going into your blatant fanning of the flames with the sex trade comment. It seems like you’re grasping at straws to find ways to criticize JD here.
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:57First Gen American says:
01 March 2011 at 9:56 am
“I have been to Africa 3 times and had similar feelings. It was really strange to me that there was no middle class there. There are the rich and the dirt poor and really nothing in between.”
Oh really? where did you go? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/31/AR2008083102083.html
http://www.cp-africa.com/2011/03/01/growing-african-middle-class-potential-source-political-stability/
This is part of the problem with making blanket statements based on limited experience/information.
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I think I would feel guilty visiting a place like Zimbabwe that has been ruled for so long by such a brutal dictator. Zimbabwe’s problems are so much the making of Mugabe. Much like with Burma, I feel as if some of the money you spend there gets back to the regime, while our own and other governments actually have sanctions against Zimbabwe. I’m curious if you did any research on the countries you went to before you did?
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122:
I don’t think I’m grasping at straws at all. You wouldn’t be skevvied about some strange man taking pics of you randomly and your children while you were going about your business? Again, for me this is particularly jarring because when JD went to Paris etc we were not presented these “street views” of different Parisians and different neighborhoods. Why the inconsistency?
You cannot talk about tourism without mentioning that a large part of tourist dollars in many nations involves sex tourism and the associated trafficking. Sorry the world isn’t Disneyland and not all tourism is innocent fun. In fact the U.S. State Department has estimated that U.S. citizens account for an estimated 25% of child sex tourists. if anyone actually is interested in some of the ethical issues around tourism UNEP has a great guide targeted towards policymakers.
http://www.unep.fr/shared/publications/pdf/DTIx0592xPA-TourismPolicyEN.pdf
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@WM (#119)
Thanks for expressing your concerns. Let me address some of them.
First of all, the complaint about calling Africa “Africa” bugs me. When I went to England and Ireland in 2007, I called that a European vacation and nobody complained. When I went to France and Italy last fall, I called that a European vacation and nobody complained. Why the double standard with Africa? The folks there call Africa “Africa” themselves. They use it as a general term all the time, even when talking to each other. And wherever we went, we saw signs for African restaurants and African art. There were sections for African books in the stores. Not Botswanan restaurants or Namibian art or Zimbabwean books. African. And if you have the complaint with a broad use of the word Africa, where do you draw the line. South Africa is very diverse. Very diverse. Is it fair to say that I visited South Africa when I only saw Johannesburg and Cape Town? Fair to say that I saw Botswana when I only saw the area around Chobe and Kasane? This complaint smacks of the absurd, and I don’t like it. If I were using the term Africa to draw broad generalizations about a vast number of people, I think your complaint would have merit. I’m not doing that, though. And, in fact, I try to use the more accurate “southern Africa” (as well as country names) most of the time. Can you tell this criticism bugs me? It does. I think it’s pretty lame. And making such a trivial complaints detracts from your more valid arguments.
Next, yes, it’s really my habit to take photos of the people who live in the countries I visit. I also take photos of people here in the U.S. When I can, I ask permission. (The girl on the bed, for example, granted me permission, and then asked to see the photo, which she liked.) Not everyone dislikes having their photo taken. And most people are accustomed to tourists taking pictures, both here and abroad. If it bugs you, don’t take photos. Or write letters to National Geographic to complain about their photos of people. (Also, note that most of my photos are of plants and animals. But this article wasn’t about plants and animals; it was about the people. That’s why I’m sharing photos of them.)
Your complaint about my name sidebar has some merit. I’m really only chuckling at the name Garlic; the others make sense. But Garlic cracks me up. I apologize.
Moving on, I’m not criticizing or otherwise judging marriage customs in Zimbabwe. Not a whit. I’m merely sharing them. They’re different than ours, and I find them interesting. Are you arguing that I shouldn’t bring them up? Is it better not to share this information? (Also, for the record, I think Zimbabwean marriage customs make much more sense than American customs. You’ll never see me arguing in favor of our current wedding system. I think it’s ludicrous.)
I agree with you that there’s something fishy about the notion that tourism is somehow virtuous and good. Perhaps it’s not exploitive (though I’m not arguing that), but it’s certainly a mixed bag. It’s not the wonderful thing that our guides (who, clearly, profit directly from tourism) make it out to be. There are heavy environmental and cultural costs. That said, I do think tourism has its benefits, both for the destination cultures and for the tourist herself. I haven’t digested things enough yet to know where I’m going to come down on this, though. What aspects of tourism are acceptable? Which are not?
Finally, there’s no question that an expensive trip through my college alumni association isn’t the best way to transfer wealth to the host culture. That wasn’t my goal when I scheduled the trip, though. (My goal was to actually see something of Africa with my wife, and this was the only way she’d do it.) It wasn’t something that had occurred to me until our time in Africa. It is, however, something I’ll consider in the future.
Follow-up to your comments in #125:
I probably took more photos of people in Europe than I did in Africa. Why? Because there weren’t as many plants and animals to shoot. Your complaint about photography is a personal pet peeve and nothing more.
Also, I think it’s crazy to assume that when people talk about tourism they have to talk about sex tourism. Really? That’s bizarre. Yes, sex tourism is a problem, but when most people talk about tourism, that’s not what they’re discussing.
I’m about to leave for my afternoon appointments. I suspect you’ll have responses, but I won’t be able to read them for four or five hours. I’m not avoiding you; I’m just taking care of business!
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Thank you for sharing about your trip. Someone may have already asked and you may have already answered, but what tour company did you use for this trip?
And I completely agree with what you said about being able to help and not allowing guilt to step in and stop you from doing something. I felt sick to my stomach after spending the equivalent of $300 US for some scarves I bought in a market in Calcutta. I’m horrible at negotiating and my brother said AFTER we left the market that he read that whatever price they give you, you start haggling with half that. Well, wish you would have told me that ahead of time! After feeling horrible about my own spending, my sister-in-law said something to the effect that I probably provided for that man’s family for a month and I put food on his table. That made me feel much better, but still, its hard to know what to feel when you know you’re overpaying, but yet you also know you can afford to pay pretty much whatever they ask.
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JD, re: the Africa comment, you may understand the distinction, but apparently a lot of your commentators don’t. I geared this comment primarily towards your readers who don’t see anything wrong with referring to Africa so broadly. Additionally, the reason you heard people use the term so frequently while there is often people have tried to give distinctions only to have it fall on deaf ears or to get blank stares so Africa becomes the common refrain. In many areas there are regional or cultural identities that superceed the nation-state that they realize you are unlikely to be familiar with and would be difficult to explain so they speak in terms of “our African culture.” Also realize in many of the areas you visited there are large refugee populations living there which is also likely to shade identification. The reason you don’t see a “Botswanan literature” department in the bookstores is there are limited publishing facilities by and large across most of Africa and thus African literature as a catch all is actually quite nascent in its development. Art is actually the opposite phenomenon, usually art springs from diverse ethnic groups so by the time you have gathered Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo, Xhosa, Zulu, Bakoena art, you would have a difficult time dividing all of it by nation-state. And again for the tourist-consumer, he/she just wants the art and aren’t concerned about the particularities of the culture it came from as long as it fits on their mantal.
Re: photos of random people. I actually dislike National Geographic for precisely that reason. It is exoticizing and invasive. And I’m hardly alone in that opinion. There are dissertations and articles galore on this topic. All I highlighted was that your pics on this blog re: your other vacations were not like this. Why weren’t you as interested by poverty in the First World as you were by it in the Third? NGOs are nothing more than nonprofits working abroad. You’ve previously been somewhat dismissive of some nonprofit work, but all of a sudden you’ve seen the light.
re: marriage customs in Zimbabwe, again my issue was with the way you conveyed it. If you put it within the context of a comparative analysis of how we treat marriage than that would be a different conversation, but the gawkerish snapshots are not helpful and read in context with your other remarks struck a chord.
Not to belabor the point, but sex tourism is just an example of the ways tourism can be incredibly destructive. There are many more. While it is not direct foreign aid, tourism can make an enconomy just as dependent on the transfer from “rich” to “poor.” And as I mentioned, it may create perverse incentives for individuals who might flourish more in another trade where they could produce tangible goods and/or agriculture to peddle wooden rhinos that ultimately are of little value to anyone.
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“re: the Africa comment, you may understand the distinction, but apparently a lot of your commentators don’t. I geared this comment primarily towards your readers”
And we thank you profusely for your kind and thoughtful insight.
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“Do people take pictures of you going about your day to day life?”
When I lived in tourist spots, they sure did. Nobody does now that I’m living out in the sticks, but in two of the destination cities I’ve lived it in was a fairly common occurrence. Videos too! Think of all the chest to knees pictures you see of folks at beaches, or of people walking on city streets in the US. Someone is taking that footage.
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Thanks so much for sharing this experience! I fell in love with Sugar and Sophia. It was so nice to have their voices narrating. Some of the entrepreneurs in your piece reminded me of those one can support at the Kiva.org website, via microfinance loans. A nice book to give elementary age kids as a gift (which teaches them about microfinance in Africa) is called One Hen, by Katie Smith Milway.
We recently took a trip with our kids that made an impression on us similar to yours in Africa. Since we live in a not-so-diverse American city, it’s been a priority of mine to show my kids that not every place is like their home. Two summers in a row we traveled to Central America, lived with a local family for three weeks, and attended Spanish language school. We went to Costa Rica then Guatemala.
It made a huge impression on my kids to live with a local family. I wrote about our experience in Guatemala at: http://playfightrepeat.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/spanish-language-immersion-guatemala
The book Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn is very inspirational. Basically they describe how one can get the biggest bang for their buck (in terms of charitable giving). If you give to a group that supports women’s education, small businesses, and/or healthcare, your money will go the furthest because women almost always return their increased resources to their communities.
We visited a non-profit in Guatemala that perfectly fit this model. I wrote about it at: http://playfightrepeat.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/starfish-one-by-one-guatemala. GRS readers would appreciate that my kids met some older girls who were part of this non-profit’s program. The day we visited, the Mayan girls were being taught about creating small businesses and the importance of saving a certain percentage every time you get paid. My kids told the girls that they have a business and save a percentage of the money they earn each time. The Mayan girls had no idea American kids ever worked for money. (And since this was our second summer in Central Am., this conversation took place in Spanish.)
Trips like yours to Africa make a long-term impression and are so worth it.
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I loved this post, thank you so much for sharing, JD. It’s also very timely for me as I am about to head to Kenya on a safari in a few weeks. I’ve given a lot of thought to the pros and cons of tourism as it affects economic justice, politics, and cultural exchange. Like so many other things there is not a single good answer. Right now I want to travel to developing countries more than Western ones because I want to see what these cultures are like before they are McGlobalized. (In 20 years the changes in France will be far less obvious than the changes in Vietnam.) Is this interest in seeing cultural differences “exoticising” as WM called it? And I realize the irony, that by visiting the place I wish to see before it is changed I am myself contributing to changing it.
But…is that bad or good? By seeing places and people that are outside of my daily experience, I know I am enriched. I am more open minded and more compassionate. I realize that people are more alike than they are different, that the sterotypes we hear about people – this group wants to kill us, that group is lazy, that culture wants to take over our way of life – do not hold up in everyday experience. Most people just go about living their lives without a sinister agenda. Might I be offering the same to those I meet on my travels, offering a different view of an American to what they might believe? Or am I reinforcing negative American sterotypes?
I don’t have answers but it’s a valuable conversation to have, and I appreciate when people ask these questions of themselves when they travel. It builds respect. I think the sterotype of the ugly American is the tourist who does not keep these kinds of things in mind.
As for WM’s comment about sex tourism. Well, yes obviously that has negative impacts on a culture. But to imply that all tourism is exploitive because some people use it for sex trade is like saying pharmacies are evil because some people abuse prescription drugs. And I live in a tourist town. I’m sure I’m in a ton of pictures. I think there is very little that is as beautiful as the human face. Pictures of people, especially when accompanied by stories, captures their individuality, humanizing them. So much dehumanizes others, but a good photo causes you to have empathy.
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@bon #101
You’re right, I phrased that poorly . I should have said “this type of tourism”, which would instantly disqualify places like Paris, Salzburg or the Swiss Alps.
However, I wasn’t addressing tourism per se, I was addressing economic inequality (the source of JD’s sense of guilt), and my point was that tourism, while it can be a big source of revenue for poor countries, is not a cure for underdevelopment.
Even in developed countries, the hospitality industry does not create a lot of high-paying professional jobs– yes, yes, we all know it creates some of those, but it’s not software or aerospace or biotechnology, or even manufacturing. Most of the hospitality jobs are a lot of hard work for little pay, which is why in countries like the US hotels run on the backs of recent (let’s not discuss legal status) immigrants. Having your food carried to your table by another person requires a measure of inequality– if a waiter made as much as a lawyer, people probably would eat at home a lot more (bad for business!).
So yes, I can reframe now and say that the hospitality industry, including tourism, is predicated on economic inequities, whether they cut across nations or across social classes. Well, it’s the same with a lot of industries though, so I’m not saying tourism is some sort of criminal enterprise.
And I’m not saying “don’t eat out” or “don’t travel”. Inequalities will always exist (it’s human nature); and the hospitality industry can lift a lot of people out of poverty. Travel also promotes cross-cultural understanding, which is a great thing. I’m all for travel. Go and visit more countries. The thing is, we need more than that to create robust economies that allow poor countries to rise to the standard of living of developed countries. That is really the point I’ve been trying to make.
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I live in downtown Baltimore and frequently rub shoulderes with people in the street. Overall wealth doesn’t necesarily translate to happiness. It’s surprising how men who live in homeless shelters can develop fulfilling relationships with others in thier same situation.
However once you see 1st had the poverty they experience here and around the world, you can begin to use your talents for good.
Thank you for this post. It helps to pop your bubble of blogging each day and see how other people in the world deal with thier relationship of life an money.
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I’m coming late to the discussion but THANK YOU JD and Kris for this wonderful post!
I would second, third, fourth Kiva dot org. I’ve been using it for years now (my DS1 is a humanitarian aid worker).
When you loan somebody money, you decide who you want to to loan it to. The person’s sex, their location, their industry / project. It is indeed a loan, you can withdraw your money once it has been paid back. We consider it “the gift that keeps on giving”, but in a good way. Every month or two we get a notification that we have X to withdraw, leave alone, or relend. We are on our 14th or 15th loan now. You can also check the viability of the organization a given borrower is working with, and decide whether or not you want to loan to them based on that info.
The principle is that it is better to teach a person to fish rather than to give them fish (paraphrase).
Also, you could certainly lend money to the exact places in Africa that you have visited. That’s how we got started on Kiva, we “stalked” our DS1 during his travels and internships LOL.
PS One last thing … you can also get your money back via Kiva gift certificates (as your loan is repaid). Every year, our two older kids get a $25 Kiva gift certificate to lend to somebody themselves.
Even if they do nothing else (one does, one doesn’t) at some point those $25 will come back and they can then relend it to somebody else.
Our two younger kids also contribute to charity, but they choose an animal to “adopt” instead.
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Coley,
Full quote: “I geared this comment primarily towards your readers who don’t see anything wrong with referring to Africa so broadly.”
For those who understand that depending on the context it might be problematic, it doesn’t apply. You’re welcome.
Michelle:
As I noted earlier, my point is that a blanket statement that tourism is positive doesn’t tell the whole story. Tourism can be positive, but it can also undermine local economies. It is all about context. I personally love travel, but I think we have to be deliberate about what and where we go and what impact we may be having on the places we visit.
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JD, I am so glad you had a wonderful trip. I am not sure if this was mentioned earlier in the comments, but you might want to check out the book “A Hole in Our Gospel.” It is a book talking about what we should be doing in our lifetime for the poor in our world, framed in the gospel. It is a life-changing read, written by Richard Stearns, who currently leads World Vision but in a previous life was CEO of both Parker Brothers and Lennox.
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Interesting post JD! Thank you for sharing your travels. I look forward to being able to take such globetrotting trips! I had to laugh at your video caption; translation can be rough – I think Sugar said that those were the “fresh chickens ever”…sounds like it from what she said about how those ladies set up their business! hahaha
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Tourism is no more or less evil than the foreign labor that goes into the clothes or products we buy. In many ways it’s simply removing the middle man (well unless you are on a tour run by a foreign company). The simple reality is those of us in the developed world exploit the non-developed world based on the wage/price arbitrage we were handed to us solely based on the fortune of our birth.
The only true way to resolve these issues is to provide everyone the same birth rights. This means allowing people and products/services to freely move about the world. But the reality is we don’t really want this and you are not going to find many people/organizations out there campaigning for it either. And you certainly don’t have to go very far to see it. In America we don’t even want Mexicans to have any opportunities. At least not in America. Not in my backyard.
So, it’s the same story. Find a way to give without actually providing anyone the real opportunity to freely compete against you and lower your standard of living. Then pat yourself on the back, rationalize away your great fortune of birth, and move on with your life.
It’s ok. I’ve done it. Except, I’ve just skipped the rationalization part and am trying to be honest with myself.
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Great post. I had many of your reactions when I visited Chile at age 18 and saw poverty that made me realize that in Canada, where I’m from, we really don’t know what true poverty is.
I had the same feelings of guilt too at first, but then I came to realize that it’s all relative. The people you met may think that you have more money than they can ever dream of and they may be right, but why should that make them unhappy? Movie stars and hockey players have more money than I could ever dream of, but I’m not seething with resentment over it. The world over, we’re all just trying to make our way and we’re all drawing our happiness from things that have nothing to do with money.
That said, poverty is no way to live and we all have basic human rights to food, clean water and adequate shelter. I donate to two separate agencies – the Red Cross for immediate disaster relief and Kiva for more long-term, sustainable development.
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I’d like to address this feeling of (white) guilt that JD brings up in this article. As a young woman who grew up in the United States with such advantages as private education and a family who was working to own a home, I have also felt the sentiments that JD is feeling. However, I don’t think that taking 25 steps backwards and saying “there is nothing I can do, I was born into this” is the most productive path. After having lived in Africa for several months (and spending much time in the United States volunteering and working for homeless and low income populations) I can say that guilt can be used as a wonderful motivatior. I had a rule for my young life that whenever I bought anything over $100 dollars I made myself save that much and donate the money to a charity that would actually help feed someone who needed to be fed. There are some wonderful Unicef commercials that have been banned in many countries that cover the idea of “compassion is great, but we need your money.” I would encourage someone like JD who is so financially conscious, to take a less existential perspective on all of this, and start thinking about what he can really do to make a difference in these individuals’ lives.
At 22 years old making 32k a year in Manhattan, I raised enough money to send one of my host sisters from Cameroon to university in Europe. Right now and for the next year several Haitian children are supported by donations that I made in lieu of gifts to friends for Christmas. I can’t imagine what someone with JD’s influence and financial expertise could do, but the one thing that I might suggest is: please start.
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I love the ostrich sign. It is likely that women and men show up and start feeding them. I have seen the same thing here in Ontario, where some tourists from Toronto will show up and approach a deet. And then the deer charges at the darling (ha!) tourists who turn tail and head for the car.
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I don’t know if anyone else suggested this, but now that you’ve seen their country, perhaps you will sponsor some of them to come see yours. You could volunteer to host exchange students, for example.
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JD, what a phenomenal post – I assure you it wasn’t boring. THANK YOU for sharing your experiences and for the amazing photos!!
I lived in the Philippines for 2.5 years in my early 20s and it rocked my world. The extreme poverty, families living in homes fashioned from card board boxes, no sanitation, wearing the same filthy clothes day in and day out. I did as much as I could for my `yardboy’ and his family of 6. I got all of my friends to hire him and at least for a few years he earned a decent living. I had a water pump installed behind their home, paid for his wife to have her tubes tied so they wouldn’t have another mouth to feed, bought them clothes and food – but always in exchange for something from them so their pride wouldn’t suffer. They gave me beautiful plants, wonderful home made ethnic food, crocheted table runners. I donated lots of $$ to other organizations but it truly felt like a mere drop in the bucket. I did struggle with guilt my first few months there.
The problem of such poverty feels too big to be fixed. I can’t solve it, you can’t solve it. We have to accept our limitations.
It’s important to realize how much we have here in this country of excess, and to be thankful for our good fortune to have been born here instead of in Zimbabwe or in a slum in Manila. Keep that experience in your heart, J.D. I know that you will!
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If tourism is so bad, then why are so many countries spending so much money in order to get people to come and visit?
I’m not sure where you are getting (JD and WM) that tourism is bad for the country/economy and is exploitive.
As to the idea that hospitality jobs somehow create inequities–people aren’t equal. We’d like to believe that we have equal rights/equal value as people, but we aren’t equal. Some are smart and some aren’t. Some have the skills to work in hospitality and some have the skills to be computer programmers or brain surgeons.
Let’s not be so politically correct that we make the claim that we are “all equal” because it just isn’t true.
Maybe someone who actually knows could explain why tourism is so bad for an economy. I believe that knowledge of another culture (and first hand is the best) leads us to greater tolerance and understanding between people and people groups.
Thanks again, JD, for your very interesting article.
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Becky,
If you reread my comments, I said tourism can be beneficial, but it also can undermine the development of local economies. I gave an example–the young man who sells souvenirs on the street might be better served working in manufacturing or working on a farm, perhaps he would have continued schooling etc etc.
Perhaps you believe people are not equal, but I believe many of the inequalities that exist are shaped by the absence of equality of opportunity. Where universal education remains largely aspirational, I find it difficult to make the claim that the people in these nations that work in hospitality do not have the skills to be computer programmers, doctors, etc. One doesn’t need to be PC to recognize that social mobility is not always tied to merit and/or hard work.
I also disagree fundamentally that “knowledge of another culture (and first hand is the best) leads us to greater tolerance and understanding between people and people groups.” Exposure doesn’t necessarily lead to better relationships. In some cases depending on the attitude of the individuals involved and the types of interactions, exposure can confirm negative stereotypes and further dehumanize. As an example, Rudyard Kipling had “first-hand” knowledge of many of the colonized and yet could pen the “White Man’s Burden.” Generally I think most tourists do not build their trips around getting a real appreciation for the particular cultures of an area. They go to see a few sights/experiences and squeeze in a side trip to a smaller village and 9 times out of 10 the fundamental attitudes and status of those involved doesn’t change.
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Outstanding.
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Thanks for sharing your experiences while traveling. I enjoy reading it as much as the personal finance advice!
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WM – Have you traveled? Then you might understand how knowledge of another culture would lead to a better understanding of people and people groups. It sounds like you think we shouldn’t travel at all because we will exploit people. I’ve been to two countries in Africa and the first trip I visited my sister in the Peace Corps and met people first hand. My second trip was with a tour company, and I really didn’t like that tour as much. As I was able to see beautiful animals and scenery, but I didn’t feel like I was able get to know and see the real part of that country.
JD – it sounds like you were able to see both the tourist side and real side of the countries you have visited. Thank you so much for posting this article, I really enjoyed reading it.
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JD,
Thanks so much for sharing this experience with us. It’s hard to hear any real stories of what life is like over there.
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