Poverty Tourism

What is Poverty Tourism? The hard-luck safari? The slumming-it of the boho college educated? The favela-shantytown EPCOT huddled away in the corner of some 3rd World Disney?



Today I played with poor children. Starting with one girl who I swung around by the arms. I kept swinging them until my hands got sweaty and then I hoisted them up by their armpits and tucked them under an arm or over a shoulder. One, two at a time. Spun them in the air as they kept coming, again and again as if they wouldn’t get tired. Dehydrated, sweating, head spinning, and maybe close to fainting, I did get tired. I couldn’t keep it up.



What is poverty tourism?



I saw joy on their faces as they ran and giggled and squealed. I saw them trust and trust freely for a moment – a moment when I picked them up – a moment when they hung weightless in the air. Something I consider now, although I did not question then: Why? Why did they trust me? Why should they? Because while I tour tin-walled shacks today, I will enjoy conditioned air tomorrow, 3-plus meals a day, and water so cheap that I don’t contemplate luxury when it runs from a faucet. Isn’t that betrayal? When I pretend that I really care, that I really love these kids and leave them? Do they buy the hustle? Do I?



What is poverty tourism?



And you could talk about good intentions or bad intentions. You could talk about the work we will do, the sacrifices we promise to each other and beg of ourselves. But when it’s your body in that place. Your White, Anglo, struggling-with-Spanish, male body, what are your intentions worth? Even our personal transformation, our betterment and beatification is made on the backs of poor folks of color, and their homes we render as a vessel for notions of out own self-improvement. I hope that they couldn’t care less for our internal struggles, because I know that some time in the future they won’t be able to care less. They will have grown too old by then for the cares of los Estados Unidenses, too heavy to lift, and not so cute any more. I hope that they know that no help will come from outside, no hand will lift them up from the shit unless it’s their own hand. And I’m sorry for the hurt of dashed hope that they could wear one day.

Contributed by Matt