Fetishizing the Poor

When SC and MI visited Nairobi most of our decisions were easy.  Go see elephants at the orphanage?  Heck yes!  Go in search of rhinos in the national park?  Definitely!  Check out the arts scene?  We’re in!  But one question loomed over their visit: How do I show a more accurate portrayal of the true lives of Nairobians if all you are seeing are tourist attractions and my home?  How does a visitor learn about the alternate reality of Nairobi’s slums without turning peoples’ lives into another kind of attraction?  Is there a such thing as an appropriate and respectful way to see how the other half lives?

Well, we hemmed and hawed about this decision going back and forth.  We really wanted to see areas like Kibera, one of the largest informal settlements in East Africa that happens to be located not far from my house.  On the other hand, it wasn’t worth seeing if we were going to be disrespectful.  We knew that we weren’t going to be able to volunteer anywhere in the amount of time we had.  So… I got in touch with a friend of mine who has worked in and around Kibera for the last 10+ years.  She hooked us up with a friend of hers who works in Kibera today and who walked us through, telling us some of the history for a few hours.  (I will tell you more about this trip in another post.)

In the end, did we succeed in sobering our vision of Nairobi while respecting the people who live informally?  I still don’t know.

Here’s what I do know.  The idea of “poverty tourism” is happening in many places in the world and very differently than the way we did it.  A friend of mine recently posted an article about a lodge in South Africa, where companies or individuals can come and “live like they’re in a slum”.  Each home has small quarters made out of rustic materials.  But these visitors don’t actually have to deal with the challenges of living informally; in this lodge there is electricity, running water, and even wifi.  “Pretending to be poor” by eschewing some of your material comforts for a few days does not bring you closer to the lives experienced by people who are actually in poverty.  It doesn’t help you understand how poverty is institutionalized or how it is maintained.  This kind of tourism isn’t respectful of peoples’ homes or lifestyles.

But I’m not sure our visit was either.  I don’t know if we had earned the right to parade through a part of town where there wasn’t anything for us, where we would be disgusted by the open sewage ravines or the rotting fish heads and where we’d marvel at how bustling the community seemed.  I don’t think we did much harm either.  We did donate a little something to the organization whose employee took us around.  So I am left with my original quandary: how does someone get a more realistic vision of a place that is so uneven (like Nairobi) without turning ourselves into voyeurs and into others’ as an object of entertainment for us.