Sit on camp chair.
Observe. write. consider.
This “linear” observation
seems strange.
Wash laundry. Fill jerry can.
Cow shit. Dog drink. Baby drink.
All one body.
Men sit, watch, read, text.
Women labor, wash, fill, direct.
Cows shit. Ding – cowbell.
Sweet earthy smell
brings back memories of
East African days and nights
long gone.
To travel is to observe.
To learn, to share
to experience
this smell.
Rich earthy.
Strong yet fragile.
Hello birdie.
Observe. write. appreciate.
Linear?
Welcome to Maun.
Traveling to faraway places can be expansive – it can inspire magic and wonder and curiosity about the world. It can enable you to explore different ways of being and ways of seeing the world. But traveling is also impactful, and not always in a positive way. In a world where most students, particularly American students, study or travel abroad in some capacity, it is vital that they view themselves within the larger system that they are participating in.
I have been fortunate to travel extensively for adventure and for work (and sometimes both at once) throughout most of my adult life, oftentimes to places extremely different from the culture I was born into, in the United States, and the culture that helped me become “me”, in Switzerland and then later in South Africa.
I’ve participated in many different types of tourism, especially here in Africa – I’m writing this from a café in Cape Town, where I’m based for a few weeks prepping for an event I’m running in a few months. As of this writing, I’ve traveled to 28 countries (eek – two more to 30!) via study abroad programs, short “academic travels” with my university, adventure trips with friends, leading my own student trips, solo trips, work trips and everything in between. Throughout the years I’ve thought critically about my role as a privileged, white foreigner who often travels to places that are typically the opposite of that and wanted to share a bit of my perspective on this as it aligns closely with Windly’s travel philosophy.
The roots of my understanding of [what I’m going to call] the postcolonial dynamics of tourism, particularly educational tourism, or in my case a “research practicum” go back to a winter’s day in Southeastern Kenya in July 2013. It was my first time in Sub-Saharan Africa and I was beyond eager to experience the reality of public health work in East Africa firsthand.
I think I was perhaps uniquely positioned to gain such a perspective, as unlike most students on this trip, I was not pre-med and came from a university that prized itself on critical assessments of cross-cultural interactions (at least in the classroom).
Our main task was to support the ongoing research of the impacts of the closure of a non-profit health clinic run by an American philanthropist on Maasai community members in the IMbirikani Group Ranch (a province). I learned some really hard lessons about foreign development on this trip, and I’ll get into those in another post. But today I want to talk about the social dynamics of research and student programs at play, and how that shapes the model of tourism that Windly supports and designs.
In Kenya, each of us was paired with another student and Maasai translator before we were sent out to various parts of the region to interview community members. It was a crash course in intercultural competence – more than I could have ever learned in a classroom, but only possible to understand because of what I had learned in the classroom (thanks, FUS). I remember sitting in the middle of a boma (homestead) with a family, in the blistering sun, with a notepad and a set of questions we were supposed to ask via our translator. Mainly questions about the family’s health seeking behavior, but specifically about birth control methods and HIV/AIDS treatment and management – topics that are really private and gendered – and looking back on it, really not appropriate to ask a stranger, especially from a conservative culture.
I had a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. In the beginning I attributed that feeling to it being a new situation, a new culture, maybe from the drinking water (again, another story) – but nothing deeper. But after sitting down on the chair promptly provided to me by the extremely welcoming Maasai Mama and looking around at the expectant faces of the family surrounding me, I realized there was a deeper meaning to this gut reaction.
One Mama put a light blue beaded ring on my finger, asking me to come back and marry her son. Another pleaded with me to help her rebuild her crumbling hut as her son was disabled and couldn’t work. Another watched her son hit her daughter with a stick as the father laughed and joked about teaching the daughter her place from a young age. I didn’t know how to respond to these interactions and I definitely didn’t have the tools, skills, or experience to balance my empathy with the reality that there wasn’t much I could do (or even whether I should). But then the question arose – so why are you here?
Later that day another Mama pointedly asked me just that – why year after year Mzungus (white people) come into their community and interview them – and nothing changes. They don’t see improvements in services or representation from their government or from non-governmental entities. Year after year, the Mzungus come with their translators, hydro flasks, and moleskin notebooks, looking inquisitively and compassionately over their Ray Ban sunglasses and shaking red silt dirt out of their Chaco’s. And nothing changes.
That day struck me like a lightening bolt and remains engrained in me as a massive shift in terms of my understanding of the reality of development and most “edu-tourism”. It was the day I realized that compassion is not an excuse for imposing my worldview on someone else and that my knowledge or experience should never be prioritized over someone else’s reality or dignity.
We were there, in this woman’s daily reality for the benefit of our education. Teaching us how to interact with “others” and maybe learn some research skills. We were not there to help this woman (whether or not “help” is what was needed – that’s a conversation for another post). I realized the program was structured so I learned something based on another person’s struggles. And we didn’t intend to do anything about it.
From that moment on, especially as I began to design and lead student programs of my own in the future, I became keenly aware that linear interactions (when one person studies, looks at, or learns from another or a group of people) are, honestly bullshit. There is no such thing as a linear interaction (this was the underlying premise of the old-age explorers or anthropologists).
Today, I would argue that we (as a global society) have somewhat of a better understanding that cross cultural interactions aren’t linear, but we have a frightfully limited understanding of what sort of interactions are healthy for both sides. I think this is largely because the design of these programs is typically still post-colonial and “top-down”, with very limited influence from the local communities.
I wrote the poem above sitting on a camp chair on the Chobe river in Maun, Botswana after a ten-hour drive from the South African border waiting for a group of 24 students to arrive. I was thinking about the best ways to help students navigate the feelings of being in a place so foreign… if it’s their first time to Southern Africa, they’ll probably be a bit afraid, very curious, and compassionate for the poverty they see. Inevitably they usually end up in the “but they’re so happy with so little!” mentality – which is better and worse in different ways that are so complicated.
I always tried to design courses (especially those with cultural engagement) with interactions with locals who ran their own organizations. If we had to do a township tour, as was often requested in South Africa, I would organize a tour focused on the entrepreneurial and creative projects that came out of a historic township like Langa in Cape Town. I would try to make sure we supported local restaurants and not fast food chains like Wimpy or McDonalds. And we’d talk about why that choice was made. I would have somewhat uncomfortable conversations with students who wanted to take photos with women in their traditional clothes – why do you want that photo? Did you actually engage with this woman and have a conversation with her? Sure, she’s fine with it – but does that make it right?
My favorite question to ask was “if social media didn’t exist, would you still take the photo, walk with the lion, etc.?”
On this trip, when we went into the Okavango Delta, we supported a community cooperative that runs Mokoro (canoe) excursions. When we went into the Chobe Enclave, we spent a night with Wildlife ACT, an amazing organization that runs wildlife research and management programs that are outside of the park management’s capacity.
I always tried to embrace complexity and to bring about a systems approach to experiences. But it makes you feel like a bad cop sometimes.
Don’t get me wrong, this model of edu-tourism is still post-colonial. It still involves you (or me) coming into a foreign place to learn something from people who don’t necessarily have any interest in teaching you something. It involves a short-term engagement for your learning. Some new models incorporate voluntourism, which in a lot of ways is actually worse, as completely unskilled tourists pay to do things that locals could be hired to do, or if they are skilled they stay for a short time before leaving to go home, thinking fondly of their time volunteering but leaving the locals with a half finished project. It involves a particularly linear flow of money.
This blog post isn’t meant to be a doomsday post telling you to stay home. On the contrary, actually. I wanted to highlight some of the considerations and complexities that are vital in making good decisions while traveling. I truly believe that the benefits of true cross-cultural engagement are enormous and traveling is one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring ways to experience life on this planet.
But I also invite you to think critically about the trip you’re signing up for, the tour operator you book with, the photo you want to take. Take initiative to travel responsibly and respectfully – spend time getting to know people, support local businesses, and above all, learn from the culture you are visiting. This is the model of travel that will break down walls and barriers and create a just and equitable world for everyone. This is the travel model of the future.
By Ellie Leaning