Thanks so much for sharing this experience with us. It’s hard to hear any real stories of what life is like over there.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And we thank you profusely for your kind and thoughtful insight.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.