Often time in travels (and the tougher part of it) it really gets to you and brings out the best (and worst) in you. And especially on 'adventure traveling' like overlanding Africa, traveling SE Asia, South America, India, whatever. I first started thinking about this concept in Mauritania where I saw someone graffiti their mission, Sholtz to SA, on a roadsign. I figgered that those people regarded their little trip in higher esteem than the sanctity and uniqueness of Mauritania and its people. And you see it everywhere; is fashionable to talk about development or doing volanteering or 'helping the poor' etc etc. Now I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, but is the sickness of our generation.
People many times treat 'developing countries' as a means to fulfil their craving 'to mean something'. And in so doing we place ourselves higher than others and in our helping, we actually dont help them be themselves. That in our charity we can rob others. We become consumers of tourism and become arrogant in what we think we know about cultures or peoples or regions etc. That we compared one people group to another and can say 'I like this, but that is not so nice as the other one'. We put on cultural filters and view all the experiences we have through them and become judges of what we like as opposed to what they like.

And this was the case in Burkina Faso too. We could have seen this as just a pass through country and our attitude could have been like that. We were only there for 3 days so what can you really expect? But the city really left a pleasant after tase with live music and the like. Also met Baba, a local, who went far out of his way to entertain us. He took us out on scooters and we drove through the city and then into the millet and rice fields, over rivers, through villages until we found a small village where we bought a chicken, slaughtered it in the field, and spread it out on the naked flames. These kinda things you won t have if you dont embrace every culture as sacred. not that we have found a good balance in that, but i strive to it... let's love people truly, not for self gain

written by  afrikawasbeer on November 6, 2009 from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
from the travel blog: Traveling Africa Overland
Send a Compliment

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love your attitude son!
love you!
mom

written by  Lorraine Fieuw on November 11, 2009

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Walter -
great thoughts on this. I completely agree with your message.

I am enjoying the blog.
Thanks for sharing the thoughts as you go.
John.

written by  John Scott on November 27, 2009

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