Life Among Trees

For generations, the Kombai hunter-gatherers have lived hidden deep in the forests of West Papua. First coming into contact with the outside world less than forty years ago, today their unique and self-sustaining way of life — from their reliance on the sago palm, to the tree houses they construct — is under threat.

Flying towards the tiny village of Wanggemalo, the valley is filled with a canopy of dense forest, wildlife, and no visible human presence for hundreds of miles. In this hot, swampy region — one of the wettest on Earth — the elusive Kombai hunter-gathers, along with many other indigenous groups, have remained hidden for generations.
 

Seven metres of rain fall per year in West Papua’s lowland forests, which are rarely more than a few metres above sea level.

Living in small isolated family groups, it was less than forty years ago when a Dutch missionary made a controversial ‘first contact’ with the Kombai. He was reportedly fed human meat by his hosts, and fled.

Today, their numbers have dropped to around 4,000 individuals. The relentless tide of logging and mining activities is steadily encroaching on the territory of the Kombai and their neighbours, and the ongoing violent conflict in the region — between the Indonesian military and those who believe in independence for West Papua — continue to threaten these peoples and their way of life. Human rights groups claim that since the contested Indonesian occupation of West Papua began in 1963, an estimated 100,000 natives of the island have been slaughtered by Indonesian soldiers or have ‘disappeared’ in the last half-century.
 

Kombai hunter wearing a necklace made of dog’s teeth / Head of a cassowary bird mounted on a staff / Traditional Kombai treehouse

The expedition on which the photographs in this story were taken, was in 2008, and in many ways, would come to have a profound impact on me.

Leaving the miniature makeshift airstrip at Wanggemalo behind, we headed into a remote part of the Papuan forest. Around twenty local porters formed a quarter-of-a-mile-long procession, carrying our supplies and tents for the intense two-week-long trek. Some of the porters had been hired to help carry my photo equipment, stands and backgrounds.
 

Kombai father and son, with their traditional weapons and catch of a small marsupial / Kombai hunter fishing in a forest stream

Our trek took us a few days deep into the hot and humid forest, before we reached Kombai territory. Constantly covered in insect repellent, as the risk of malaria was very high, my guide had warned me that when it rained the conditions could become a quagmire of mud and very challenging. Fortunately we did not experience that kind of weather.

According to Kombai tradition, when strangers are approaching a treehouse, including invited guests, they are stopped by men armed with bows and arrows, and forced to prove that they mean no harm.
 

Young Kombai carrying a freshly killed piglet after a successful hunt in the forest, with blood pouring down his lower back.

Day-to-day, the men use their bows and arrows — crafted from cassowary bones and dry sugar cane stick — to hunt a wide range of prey in the surrounding forests, including cassowary birds, marsupials, and wild boar and pigs, often using small dogs to help track down and kill animals. The Kombai also fish in the many streams, by building small dams, and then beating the poison from a particular toxic root into the pooled water. This forces the fish to the surface, where they are easily captured.
 

Kombai mother carrying her child through the forest in a root bag / Kombai hunter standing in front of a giant sago palm leaf

As food is abundant in the forest, none is stored, and it is the sago palm tree that provides the Kombai’s staple food — acting as their main source of carbohydrate. In addition to their role as hunters, the men are responsible for cutting down the sago palms, which grow in clumps of a few dozen, wild in the forest. Once felled, the women and girls will then drain and dry bundles of starchy pulp extracted from the inside of the palm, before pulverising it into flour and baking a kind of bread. A large sago tree can provide enough pulp to sustain a family for at least a week.
 

Aman is eating sago out of a leaf / A Kombai drinks water from a stream out of a leaf
 

The sago tree also provides a particular delicacy and treat for the Kombai: the sago grub, which is actually the larvae of the capricorn beetle. In order to harvest these grubs, they will cut down a sago palm, leave it for a month, and then wrap the trunk in leaves while it continues to rot. Three months later, they will return once again to collect the grubs. Both the Kombai, and their neighbouring tribe, the Korowai, have traditionally held special festivals, usually every five or ten years, to feast on these grubs and renew social ties. The grub is a luxury, and it is customary for the hosts to feed each one of their many guests before eating themselves.
 

Giant cricket / Kombai men cutting down a sago tree and the size of the many insects in the forest was mesmerising. The natural environment, the trees, the birds — they all had an extraordinary quality.

The size of the many insects in the forest was mesmerising. The natural environment, the trees, the birds — they all had an extraordinary quality.
 

Many Kombai pierce their noses with a sago thorn / Kombai men start wearing penis gourds during puberty / Kombai hunter with his stone axe

The forest also provides the Kombai with materials for their traditional garments. The men wear little apart from a koketa, or a penis gourd, which seemed to be made from a bird’s beak. Some of the men we met also wore necklaces made from dog’s teeth. A few times during our stay, I was asked why I was wearing clothes, and was told that it would make my hosts less afraid and more at ease if we were all naked. Meanwhile, the women fashion grass skirts, and as a sign of beauty also wear crowns made of dry moss or feathers, including those of chickens and cockatoos. Mothers will often carry their babies through the forest in root beerags, woven out of fibrous strands, with the load resting on their foreheads.
 

Colourful forest beetle / Kombai hunter at rest

Although machetes and metal knives are becoming more common, most Kombai men still carried and used a homemade axe composed of a piece of rock wrapped around a tree branch. Often the stone had been traded for hundreds of miles away, and kept in the family for generations.
 

Inside a Kombai treehouse ‘kitchen’ / Kombai hunter seated on a palm tree branch, carrying a handcrafted traditional stone axe

High above the ground, the Kombai’s tree houses are reached by scaling a tree trunk that has steps carved into it, to form a ladder. It is thought that their tree houses evolved as a method of protection from raiding enemy tribes, and the roofs are created using the giant leaves of the sago palms.
 

Descending a stepped trunk from a Kombai tree house / The Kombai are intimately connected with the forest around them

While living with the Kombai, I learned that only the men will sleep in the tree houses, while the women will sleep in small houses on the ground. I wondered about this apparent division between the men and women, who for the most part, spent their days apart and did not eat or sleep together. When they shared moments of intimacy remained a mystery.
 

Hunters advancing in the forest, looking for pigs and cassowary birds / Kombai couple

Kombai life is suffused with belief and rituals linked to both benevolent and evil spirits. The forest is divided into clan or family territories, but there are also areas where no clan will live, as these are thought to be inhabited by spirits. Historically, it was seen a grave threat for a stranger to enter a clan’s territory, and it is interesting that the word for a spirit in their language, kwai, is also the word used to describe an outsider.

In traditional Kombai culture, men who have been identified as evil, called Khakhua-Kumu, are believed to consume the souls of their victims, and must be killed or eaten in return. Reports vary as to whether or not cannibalism is still practised as a punishment among the Kombai today.
 

Hunter at rest in a tree house / Kombai woman standing in front of a giant sago palm leaf

It was hard for the Kombai to fathom or understand what I was trying to achieve with the strange and utterly unfamiliar device that I was pointing at them. Asking whether they would mind standing still for a few minutes for a particular pose was often very challenging, as my unusual requests had to be first translated from English into Bahasa Indonesian, and then from Bahasa into the local Kombai language.

Although I could not communicate with the Kombai except through a translator, I was able to observe a few of the characters with whom we were spending time. Most of them were hunters. I remember them laughing a lot, and it seemed as if they were in the habit of constantly cracking jokes at each other. They certainly had a good sense of humor.
 

Mist in the early morning / Kombai hunter scrutinising the forest from a tree house

The time I spent with the Kombai was a very introspective one. So often during my stay in their pristine natural environment it seemed quite unbelievable and incredible to think of the life and the material world that I had left behind in New York, and to which I would be returning in just a few weeks — there was a chasm of thirty or forty thousand years between my life and theirs. Those moments felt like an out-of-body experience, thinking that this was the way of life we all once came from.

I was millions miles away from New York and all the hassles that living in a big modern city bring. This trip, I would realise weeks and months later, was to have a deep lasting effect on me and to be a life-changing event in many ways. Most importantly, it put a great many things into perspective. Once back home, I thought very often about my startling and unusual time with the Kombai, and I found that the everyday stress and worry had a very different impact on me. It was truly a remarkable effect.
 

Kombai women wearing a moss crown and feathers as a sign of beauty, also carrying a traditional root bag.

Today, Kombai lands and their traditional way of life in the forest are under great threat, particularly from deforestation. For decades, the island has ben plagued by political unrest, mining, logging, unscrupulous traders, inter-tribal conflict, controversial missionary influences, and human rights atrocities committed by the Indonesian military.

Though the remote, inaccessible areas of virgin forest where the Kombai live are some of the last to be reached by outsiders, they are now being subject to powerful forces beyond their control. Many other groups are still actively fighting for independence for West Papua, and it is important that peoples like the Kombai somehow have a voice in the future of the lands that their ancestors have inhabited for many thousands of years.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA.

FREDERIC LAGRANGE

Frédéric  Lagrange is a photographer & director based in Brooklyn, NYC shooting for a diverse range of editorial and commercial clients world-wide. Follow the journey on Instagram @fredericlagrange.

5 Lessons I Learned from Living with an Extreme Eco-Witch

In a rural town in the coast of Ecuador I had the pleasure of living with a woman. An eccentric woman. Some even said a witch. Witch or not she challenged me to challenge myself and my ecological standing. Here is what I learnt.

The walls of the Secret Garden were embedded with glass shards. Above the wall sat strategically placed barbed wire. The wall stood 10 ft. high communicating something along the lines of “I dare you to even try”. I pictured every shard of glass as a remnant of the woman behind it. Hidden for 8 years by high fences and rumors that she was a witch.  From inside she watched the uninterrupted life outside of her icy fortress. A bird that once caged itself and has been trapped ever since.  

The Secret Garden was not so aptly named. It was the largest house on the block by at least one whole story. The Secret Garden. I repeated it to myself. The irony tingled on my tongue. My partner Alex held my hand as we entered what was to be home for the next month.

Bucket Showers

We’ve been here a few days shy of a month and for the most part have caused this eccentric woman a drought. We’ve been showering with a one liter measuring jug. While the locals nearby go to a well, she collects rain water. The roof has pipes fringing the roof which collect in a tank. From there it is pumped upwards into a second tank and then she uses gravity for the last step. Water flows from the highest tank into the taps. She relays to me she’s only had running water for 6 months though she has been collecting rain water for much longer. It’s going to be the second time she calls the truck. She holds my glance as she says this, looking me up and down and reinforcing the message. “The second time!”.

All water is conserved here. There are two buckets in the sink. One for washing and one for rinsing. It works in a cycle. The washing water is thrown out over the garden and replaced by the rinse water. Furthermore any water that goes down the sink or in the shower is collected in another tank.

The water truck comes. She looks defeated. Her statements are witty and passive aggressive as though she knows I was using 2 liters of water for my bucket showers instead of one. In my defense it is the dry season.

Lesson 1: Be conscious of water usage.  Water doesn’t just fall from the sky ya know.

Fishy Road Kill and Voodoo Dolls

There was something missing about the house and for the first few days we couldn’t figure it out… and then we went grocery shopping. This woman didn’t own a fridge. Overall, it was a good thing as it meant that all left overs were eaten rather than thrown to the back of the fridge. She tossed us a Styrofoam box filled with brown goo; “just buy ice… oh and give it a wash”. Our seafood, was always bought fresh. Every morning there are fisherman detangling their catch from nets with the patience and precision that only years of practice could bestow. We would wait until lunch to cook our spoils and because of this it always had a thick pasty consistency and fishy road kill flavor. Our broccoli, too, was always expired. I cursed firstly the heat and then the cooler which only offered half a day of solace from the tormenting sun.  

But we were not the only ones. She keeps her homemade cat food in a neighbor’s fridge. Two out of three of her cats’ bellies sag so low they sweep the floor. From what I saw this was her favorite neighbor. The man in the blue house down the road. The family behind her think that she is a witch. A label she perpetuates by leaving voodoo dolls over their side of the fence. The family adjacent to her vacated when she told them that she came from a land of devils. A clever play on words for the Tasmanian Devil in Australia. “The locals here are a little superstitious”, she cackles.

Lesson 2: Buy fresh and eat fresh. More walks to the market isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

You Threw THAT away? 

Need I say this woman recycled? She owned a series of garbage containers distinguishing intricacies in the material. She was working towards a plastic free home, a feat much more difficult than it sounds. In our room there was a list of rules, one of which was “no plastic bags”. Buying food, if caught without a bag became a game of smuggling. The fruit and vegetable trucks come every other day at random times. And when caught off guard, we would use plastic. As per request, after unpacking we would wash the plastic bags and hang them up to dry, to be reused. This was done in secret to try to avoid a punishing eye about bringing home more plastic bags. More often than not we would walk home with an assortment of items stacked awkwardly against our chest and were greeted with an approving smile or “what’s for dinner?”.  

Lesson 3: Everything can be reused, recycled or up cycled.

SHIT!

“This is the bathroom”. Alex and I were getting the grand tour of her house. “It’s a composting toilet so you can throw your toilet paper inside the toilet” “ohhh” “ahhh”. For anyone else who has travelled through Latin America, you know this is kind of a big deal. All you do is chuck some sawdust in afterwards and let nature do its magic. Well, technically less magic from nature and more bugs digesting feces which is then shoveled to be used for compost in the garden. Ta-da! The garden gifted her back fruits, vegetables, herbs and an assortment of goodies she made into cleaning products, mosquito repellent, even gift wrapping.  

Lesson 4: Literally, you can recycle anything.

Bliss Bombs  

She told us that the government watches her because of her ‘bliss bombs’, a fruity protein ball of shredded coconut, almond meal chia seeds and dates. “If you google ‘bomb’, which I do because of ‘bliss bomb’ then the government puts you on a blacklist”.   Once a chef and always an animal rights activist, I was amazed at what much she could make with just vegetables and a few grains. No gluten, no fats, no meat and “no fucking sugar” this was written on a whiteboard in the kitchen and repeated in all of her meals. Her chili sauce, a family recipe, was to die for and made an appearance in different restaurants in the town, in recycled Gatorade bottles she collected along the road.

Lesson 5: You are what you eat. Eat to reflect your ethics. 

Admittedly, I’ve never been overly conscious of my waste more than the basic dabble in vegetarianism and using a recycle bin. But, since moving out I’ve seen little differences here and there in my dispositions towards conservation and sustainability in everyday activities. This eco-warrior/ witch/ woman taught me a lot.

JESS LEMIRE

Jess Lemire is a traveller, writer and social activist, sometimes simultaneously. I write about the things that I am passionate about and am passionate about what I write. I'm a cultural observer and linguist at heart.
I love good food and am a low key fruit juice enthusiast.

MAURITANIA: Journey through the Sahara

For 700km, day and night, we slithered through the vast uninhabited Sahara desert, sleeping on top of Mauritania’s infamous iron ore train. Heading for the coast, we hoped to find a place of forgotten shipwrecks and unknown surf.

When I was young I would pore over National Geographic magazines and dream of adventures like this — train hopping through the Sahara Desert on one of the world’s longest trains.
I had dreamt of the oceans, of the sand, the loud clattering noises of the train, the cold, the wind, the scorching sun. The unknown smells and sounds of the desert, and all the discomfort that goes with it.

That visceral experience was exactly what we got as we slithered night and day through the vast uninhabited desert, sleeping on top of Mauritania’s infamous iron ore train. Our unconventional 700km journey took us right through the Sahara to reach the coast, where we were hoping to find a place of forgotten shipwrecks and unknown surf.

I have always been enthralled by the idea of train hopping and have a particular fascination with the Sahara Desert. As I began researching this unique country, I became even more intrigued. Not many people travel in this part of the world and even fewer have even heard of Mauritania — quite astounding considering that its territory is twice the size of France and takes up a large portion of north western Africa.

Our journey began in the capital of Nouakchott, from where I travelled north with a surfer to hop on the Mauritania Railway. We planned to ride the 2.5km long train from a small town called Choum, located south of the iron mine in Zouerat, toward the port of Nouadhibou on the Atlantic coast. My aim was to try and capture the spirit of adventure and exploration as we passed through this incredible desolate landscape.

For me, adventure is not about the destination, but about the challenges, hardship and inevitable beauty in the process of getting there.

From Nouakchott we worked our way through the interior, on what can barely be described as roads. On one particular day the weather conditions take a turn for the worse and a desert sandstorm begins to form on the horizon. I had stopped to take some photographs and before we knew it, the wind picked up considerably and it started to rain.

Within minutes, the sky darkens and the winds increase to what we guess is around 150km/hr. The stinging and blowing of the sand act as sandpaper and is so intense that I feel like my exposed skin is starting to come off.

We quickly find ourselves pinned to the side of our truck, as we try to find some shelter and reprieve. When the wind dies down and we are finally able to climb back inside the truck there are pieces of shattered glass everywhere. Our back window has completely imploded and the interior is soaked. Our guide, who had been waiting for us in the back seat, has cuts all over his body from the glass. As the storm settles we resumed our journey north through the desert, anxious to find the next unexpected turn of events. 

When we finally reach Choum, we are told that the train usually passes through sometime in the late afternoon. As we settle in and wait in the dirt by the tracks, a few families showed up with their goats and boxes of various goods. The kids run around while the parents make dinner and tea on small fires. As the light of the day descends and the sun dips below the horizon we resolved to try to get some sleep. When the train finally arrives, it is six hours late and long after midnight. We grab our gear and wait for the train to slow but it doesn’t actually stop. We run alongside the cars carrying the iron ore, illuminating the ground ahead with our headlamps.

We have no idea how much time we have to get on so we quickly pick a car and climbed up one of the ladders, throwing our gear and ourselves into it as fast as possible. With no warning the train picks up speed again.

We try to get a sense of our surroundings but end up creating a makeshift bed to try and get some sleep on the heaped mounds of jagged iron ore that fill our car. During the night, the desert temperatures drop dramatically and I put on all the clothes I have to try and get a little sleep. Any kind of rest is difficult not only because the train is incredibly loud, but because its huge length means that whenever it increases or decreases speed the cars hammer together violently.

Dawn brings with it the realization that the dust from the iron ore has seeped into all of our clothing, staining everything a rusty red hue. The abrasive dust gets everywhere, so we wear ski goggles to protect our eyes and wrap scarves around our heads to prevent us from breathing it in.

As the sun gives us warmth, we look out across the vast Sahara desert taking in the endless sand and arid plains. Relentless winds have endlessly recast the undulating dunes of the interior leaving a stark beauty.

The Mauritania Railway serves not only as the sole connection between remote locations and the country’s only major shipping port, Nouadhibou, but as free transport for locals seeking to travel from isolated communities to the coast. The hours pass slowly and the temperatures rise inexorably to become a blistering, sweltering heat. In some ways, there is little to see along the way except a few very small homes and dead camels wasting away beside the tracks.

Eventually we reach the coast and pull into Nouadhibou station, where we head out in search of unknown surf and a huge cemetery of lost shipwrecks. There are land mines peppering the landscape here, so access to the coast is a delicate task. In recent years, many of the shipwrecks have been dismantled and sold for their metal but there are still some fascinating rusting ship skeletons to be found.
 

From the shipwreck graveyards my curiosity leads me to spend time with the Imraguen fishermen in Banc d’Arguin National Park. It is a world heritage site because of its natural resources and fisheries. The Imraguen people have maintained their age-old lifestyles, based almost exclusively on harvesting the migratory fish populations using traditional sailboats. 

The Imraguen fishermen still use traditional techniques that are unchanged since they were first recorded by 15th century Portuguese explorers.

One thing that shocks me is that the fishermen cannot swim. The night I arrive in their village, locals tell me that one of fishermen has fallen from his boat and is believed to have drowned. The next day we help the community look for his body but it is never found. It seems incredible to me that these people live their whole lives by the sea and spend every day fishing, yet still do not know how to swim, almost as though cultural superstition prevents them from wanting to learn.

As my journey comes to an end I reflect on our experiences. I realize that this adventure has been one of those rare times in life when the expectations of your dreams and reality converge, and your adventures play out even better than you imagined.
 

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA.

JODY MACDONALD

Jody MacDonald is an adventure sport, expedition and documentary-style photographer searching for adventure in the remote corners of the planet.

Fighting the Desert with Gardens in Senegal

This video follows a group of people in Senegal who are fighting deforestation. Due to extreme poverty, many people in Senegal result to cutting down trees to make money. This group is planting trees and gardens to help the environment. 

Orphanage Volunteering’s Shocking Link to Child Abuse

I never thought that playing catch with a kid could be a bad thing, or that goofing off could contribute to long-term psychological damage. Even now, as I write it, it all seems a little absurd. Is it really possible that making kids laugh could do permanent harm?

Every year, millions of people travel around the world to volunteer. Orphanages are one of the most popular destinations, and it makes sense. Many volunteers like working with children, often because children are enthusiastic and working with them is very active and “hands on.” Most of the tasks volunteers are given when working with kids are simple, and it is rare that volunteers are expected to have any specialized skills or to participate in any in-depth training before starting their volunteer work.

At the same time, orphanages are often understaffed and poorly kept up. Operating with limited resources (or under the appearance of limited resources), they are frequently on the lookout for people who are willing to pay to work. Placement companies and organizations provide orphanages with paying volunteers to help with childcare, teaching, cooking, and maintenance. Volunteers are told that they’ll be providing orphaned children with a more nurturing environment while orphanages get a steady income and a constant flow of helping hands.

All of this sounds fine and dandy, but the problem with orphanage volunteer work isn’t in the volunteer’s desire to help, but in the very existence and implementation of orphanages themselves.

Not many would-be volunteers realize that more than 80% of children who are labeled as “orphans” have a surviving parent. Even fewer understand that the traditional kinship structures of many non-western countries, especially those where orphanage volunteering is most common, actually result in very few children being left without someone to care for them (Richter and Norman, 2010; UNAIDS/UNICEF/USAID, 2004).

Which begs the question: why are there so many kids in orphanages?

There are orphans that need a home, and sometimes that means that they have to go into group care, but for many of the children who are labeled as orphans and blazoned across brochures, it’s poverty, not a loss of family, that put them there. Desperation will make people do unthinkable things, especially with the promise of ample food, a solid education, and a comfortable bed. Because of this, all around the world caregivers are willingly giving up their children to orphanages. Sometimes, they even get cash in return. This isn’t altruism on the orphanages part, it’s well-disguised human trafficking.

None of this is the volunteer’s fault, but just by working at orphanages, volunteers are contributing to the problem and, inadvertently, may be supporting the exploitation and traumatization of children - the opposite of what their goal was in going to volunteer in the first place.

Once the volunteer arrives at the orphanage, they might get a feeling that something is off, but it’s easy to push that feeling away when there are kids who genuinely do need help regardless of how they got there. The do need attention and love, they do need teachers and caregivers, and when they get those things children, especially young children, are often overwhelming grateful. It’s hard to walk away, and it’s easy to ignore the problems when there’s a kid on your lap, a kid on your back, and another looking for a place to grab onto.

While the industry is definitely shockingly corrupt, there are many orphanages and children’s homes that truly believe that they are acting in their ward’s best interests and are committed to putting the child’s, not the paying visitor’s, needs first. The way children get into an orphanage, and the ongoing exploitation of them once they have arrived, are part of a systemic problem that may not apply to every orphanage. However, there are also more personal impacts of short-term volunteering, relevant across the entire industry, that may be just as harmful.

Three key aspects of child development that most people can agree on are:

1. Children benefit from long-term relationships with adult figures.
2. Those adults don’t have to be a family member in the traditional sense, but having a stable familial atmosphere promotes positive development.
3. Children without stable relationships with adults often suffer from psychological and behavioral issues that are directly related to a lack of stability and guidance early in life.

All three of these are proven concepts that apply around the world from Cambodian orphanages to the American foster care system. Orphanages that rely heavily on free or paying volunteer labor and, as a result, tend to have only a small local staff, act in complete disregard of these three concepts. They drastically reduce the opportunities that their children have to form long-term relationships, they create an unstable environment where people are constantly rotating in and out and, by doing those two things, they are causing psychological damage to the children that they are supposed to be helping.

As a privileged “gringa,” or white girl, who spends time in impoverished communities, I’ve come to realized not only what my presence can mean, but also what it can do. I know that when I was doing short-term volunteer work, I was as much of an exotic distraction to the children I was working with as they were to me. Even when they had the opportunity to form relationships with locals who could serve as role models, it was my presence that was highlighted. I, the person who was going to leave in just a few days, was given all the attention that should have been shined on the heroes who the children were interacting with every day.

Some might argue that this is giving volunteers too much credit since that all they are there to do is help. Any person who has had children climb on top of them in a frenzy for attention, clamor to have their picture taken, or cry in their arms as they prepare to leave, has to admit that they are in a position of immense power. By choosing to support orphanages that rely on volunteer labor, well-meaning volunteers are inadvertently using this power to exacerbate a broken system and disincentivize governments and NGOs from finding lasting systems-based solutions.

Even if the orphanage that you’ve been eyeing looks perfect, short-term volunteering at orphanages feeds a market that trafficks in, exploits, abuses, and permanently traumatizes the very children that you are looking to help. Even in the best of cases, short-term volunteer work, especially unskilled and non-specialized placements, encourage an uneven power dynamic in which the volunteers are held above the locals. They are looked to as benevolent angels, turning the lens away from the men and women who could serve as positive adult role-models for children who desperately need a stable family environment.

I’ve would never have labeled myself as abusive before I volunteered at an orphanage, and I think it’s fair to say that most volunteers would recoil at the suggestion that they could be categorized as abusers. Now that I know what orphanage volunteer does to children, I have to call it out for what it is - abusive and exploitative.

So no, you shouldn’t go. Don’t support orphanage volunteering. Don’t support child abuse.

You can support this effort in two ways:

1. Sign the petition calling on travel operators to remove orphanage volunteering placements from their websites.
2. Share this post, along with your thoughts on orphanage volunteering, using the hashtag #StopOrphanTrips. 

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON HUFFINGTON POST.

PIPPA BIDDLE

Pippa Biddle is a writer. Her work has been published by The New York Times online, Antillean Media Group, The FBomb, MTV, Elite Daily, Go Overseas, Matador Network, and more. She is a graduate of Columbia University with a degree in Creative Writing. Twitter: @PhilippaBiddle

VIDEO: A Fisherman's Freedom in Madagascar

Ravelo was trapped; He couldn't afford to continue paying the local loan shark to rent fishing equipment, because he couldn't catch fish to sell and make his payments. He couldn't catch fish because the mangrove estuaries had been depleted of wood for fire, in turn decimating the population of fish and seafood.

When Ravelo was hired by Eden Reforestation Projects, he was not only able to make an income planting trees, but his environment began to revitalize.

Eden Reforestation Projects hired Outskirt Films to tell this story on the remote coast of Madagascar. This powerful story was filmed in Madagascar by Outskirt Films.

VIDEO: Deep in Panama's Rainforest

Enrique Pacheco’s cinematography takes us on a journey through Panama’s lush landscape.

“Deep in the Rainforest” captures the density and beauty of this undisrupted natural space. Through Pacheco’s lens, we explore nature’s gentle power—torrential storms, vibrant light, and the intricate ecosystems that make up Panama’s environment.

VIDEO: The Social Enterprise Biji-Biji in Malaysia

The Biji-biji Initiative is a social enterprise that aims to share progressive ideas with everyone. In Kuala Lumpur the organization is a champion of sustainable living and by using discarded materials, basic electronics and passive building techniques to reuse waste in creative ways.

Protesting the Travel Ban at LAX: Attorney Julia Trankiem Shares Her Volunteer Experience

On January 29, 2017, in response to Executive Order 13769—nicknamed the “travel ban”— which suspended refugee arrivals and banned entry into the U.S. for 7 predominantly Muslim countries, and likely spurred by the previous day’s demonstrations at JFK airport, hundreds of protesters descended on LAX condemning the Order. 

That Sunday morning, chants like, “No Hate, No Fear. Immigrants Are Welcome Here,” rang out throughout the airport. There was marching, there were signs, there was singing, there were cries. Religious adherents, military veterans, descendants of immigrants, translators, lawyers, and politicians were present, demonstrating and lending support and services. 

One of the attorneys lending her services was Julia Trankiem. The daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, and an alumna of University of Michigan Law School, Julia practices litigation and employment law in Los Angeles. Friday evening, word of the travel ban reached her. Saturday, she spent time learning more about the ban and reaching out to her contact at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). By Sunday morning, she was driving towards LAX while listening to the news in tears. “I felt compelled,” she said, “I didn’t have a choice to just sit back.”

She headed to the short term parking lot, where she boarded a bus filled with protestors. After she arrived at the outside terminals, Trankiem saw a sign that read, “Hi, I’m an attorney.” The man behind the sign directed her towards The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf inside. Once she made it, she found too many attorneys and not enough work. Undeterred, she eventually made her way to the baggage claim area, where she was able to begin volunteering.

Trankiem spent much of her day as an intake coordinator. Since there were no direct flights from the banned countries, she looked up flights to guess where else travelers might be flying in from—layover cities like London, Dubai, and Frankfurt. Afterwards, she helped send other attorneys to the corresponding terminal to meet with travelers to see if they or their family members or loved ones were subject to the Executive Order. 

Detention times varied for flagged travellers, but some were detained longer than 6 hours, Julia says. There were rumors of immigration officials asking people to sign over their visas and conflicting stories of provisions, like food and water, having to be requested for detainees. There was confusion, and chaos, and disorganization, Julia says. There were also counter protesters with a different message. Julia heard accounts from attorneys that some people were told to, “Go back to where you came from.” The Los Angeles Times reported that there were about a dozen protesters in support of the travel ban. 

The overwhelming majority of protesters at LAX, however, were against the ban, and in support of immigrants and refugees. Julia describes a sea of demonstrators on the parking bridge, in the lot, and in baggage claim-- some of whom applauded when international travellers de-planed and picked up their luggage. Many also held signs with compassionate messages like, “Welcome To This Country.” She says there was a “vibrant energy” that was “unifying” on that Sunday at LAX. She and others shared the “common goal of trying to make a difference and  stand up for America’s core values.” Julia shares that she was thanked for her efforts, but left feeling thankful she was able to be of some assistance. She says that America blessed her family by allowing them into the U.S. after they fled the Vietnam War, and her volunteering was a small way to help repay the debt she feels she owes America. 

Between January 27, 2017and January 31, 2017, an estimated 60,000 visas were revoked. By January 31st, nearly 50 lawsuits had been filed contesting the constitutionality of Executive Order 13769. On February 3, 2017, just 5 days after the LAX protest, a temporary restraining order (State of Washington v. Trump) was placed on the Executive Order.  That restraining order was challenged and later upheld by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on February 9, 2017. The litigation is ongoing.
 

ALEXANDREA THORNTON

Alexandrea Thornton is a journalist and producer living in NY. A graduate of UC Berkeley and Columbia University, she splits her time between California and New York. She's an avid reader and is penning her first non-fiction book. 

VIDEO: People Before Profit

Most development projects, at face value, seem aimed at improving the lives of people. The reality for communities living at or near a project -- be it a dam, a sports complex, or a shopping mall -- is often quite different. 

Forced evictions regularly do not uphold obligations to fairly consult, compensate, resettle and rehabilitate communities. An estimated 15 million people are affected each year.

WITNESS, with partners around the world, are bringing the stories of communities facing human rights abuses and forced evictions to the government officials, the courts and corporations who can make change. For more information about this campaign visit www.witness.org
 

BANGLADESH/INDIA: From No-Man's Land to the Unknown

For decades, more than 50,000 people have been stranded, without access to basic rights, on tiny islands of no-man’s land locked within India and Bangladesh. 2015 finally saw an end to these enclaves, or ‘chitmahals,’ bringing hope and change to communities living on the world’s most complex border.

The party lasted long into the night across remote patches of northern Bangladesh. As the clock struck midnight people played music, danced and sang using candles for light, and for the first time in their villages they raised a national flag. Similar events were also taking place on the other side of the border in India just a stone’s throw away. 

For 68 years, ever since the formation of East Pakistan in 1947 (which later became known as Bangladesh), the residents of one of the world’s greatest geographical border oddities have been waiting for this moment; for their chance to finally become part of the country that has surrounded yet eluded them for so many years.

At 12.01am on July 31st, 2015, India and Bangladesh finally exchanged 162 tracts of land — 111 inside Bangladesh and 51 inside India. 

Known in geographical terms as enclaves, or locally as chitmahals, these areas can most easily be described as sovereign pieces of land completely surrounded by another, entirely different, sovereign nation.

Inside an enclave, a man prepares jute by removing the long, soft vegetable fibres that can be spun into coarse, strong threads, and keeping the sticks. For many enclave dwellers, jute is where most of their income comes from and also what they use to build their houses.
 

Enclaves aren’t as rare as you may think, and until now this part of South Asia has contained the vast majority. Existing around the world, mostly in Europe and the former Soviet Union, they were once much more prevalent — until modern day cartography and accurately defined borders eliminated many. Some still remain, such as the Belgium town of Baarle-Hertog, which is full of Dutch territory. The locals have turned the unusual border into a tourist attraction. However, for this region of southern Asia, where political and religious tensions run high, the existence of enclaves is not so jovial. Life for those who are from these areas is far harder than in neighbouring villages, only minutes away.
 

Sisters Lobar Rani Bormoni, 11, and Shapla Rani Bormoni, 12, stand in a paddy field in the enclave in Bangladesh where they born.
 

“These enclaves are officially recognised by each state, but remain un-administered because of their discontinuous geography. Enclave residents are often described as “stateless” in that they live in zones outside of official administration — since officials of one country cannot cross a sovereign frontier into administered territory,” explains Jason Cons, a Research Assistant Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and author of the forthcoming book, ‘Sensitive Space: Fragmented Territory at the India-Bangladesh Border.’
 

Muslim men from Dhoholakhagrabari enclave pray in their mosque. Mosques are usually the only solid structures that exist inside the enclaves.
 

Several folktales tell of the origin of these enclaves being the stakes in a game of chess between two feuding maharajas in the 18th century, or even the result of a drunken British officer who spilt spots of ink on the map he drew during partition in 1947. Captivating as these stories are, the most likely explanation dates back to 1711 when a peace treaty was signed between the feuding Maharajah of Coch Behar and the Mughal Emperor in Delhi. After the treaty their respective armies retained and controlled areas of land, where the local people had to pay tax to the respective ruler, thus creating pockets of land controlled by different people.

Prior to 1947, when this region was entirely Indian territory, living in these locally-controlled enclaves made little difference. However, during the drawing of the boundary between India and Bangladesh, the Maharajah of Coch Behar asked to join India — on the condition that he retain all his land, including that inside the newly formed East Pakistan, which his ancestors had rightly won control of over 200 years ago.

So, through no fault of their own, the lives of 50,000 people turned upside down — for decades they have been stranded on islands of no-man’s land.

A man fishes at dusk using his large bamboo fish trap. This river exists just outside the enclave but as it’s in Bangladesh territory, enclave dwellers are forbidden to fish here otherwise angering the local fishermen. 

Enclave dwellers fish in a flooded paddy.

During the early 1970s a framework to find a solution to this problem was put in place — called the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement. For forty years, as governments came and went, neither the Indian nor the Bangladeshi politicians were able to agree with their counterparts at the time. And whilst the politicians squabbled, the residents suffered.

Only informal work, like at this sawmill, is available for enclave dwellers in Bangladesh.
 

On the ground there are no border fences or security checkpoints, and without realising it, you can walk in and out of India countless times, crossing an international boundary completely obliviously. However, there is a serious lack of infrastructure and this has been one of the most serious problems facing the residents. Paved roads quite literally stop at the boundaries to the chitmahals, as do electricity poles. The enclave inhabitants in Debiganj District of Bangladesh, as non-Bangladeshi citizens, were even barred from sending their children to school, also receiving no state assistance or even the most basic of hospital treatment.

Sheltered within their small bamboo house, located inside the enclave of Dhoholakhagrabari, Eity Rani, 14, and Shobo Rai, 8, carefully do their homework by the light of an oil lamp. Life is much harder for children who are born in enclaves.

 A Bangladeshi man sits in a shop in the market of a small town that sits between enclaves.

Every Saturday a jute market is held in Debiganj. For the many inhabitants of the enclaves that surround the town, jute is where most of their income comes from.

Wearing just a lungi — a traditional sarong worn around the waist — Sri Ajit Memo is sitting in the middle of a small muddy courtyard, surrounded by houses made of bamboo and jute sticks. At 55 years old, his family have lived in a Dhoholakhagrabari chitmahal for generations. Chewing on the twig of a certain tree that locals here use as an alternative to toothpaste, he explains, “All kinds of problems exist here. The government doesn’t care about us, or our children, and so it’s very difficult for them to even go to school. Honestly, we are Indian, but how can we feel this way when we get no help from them?”

For enclave dwellers on both sides of the Indian-Bangladeshi border, the entitlement to receive even the most basic of rights has eluded them.

Reece Jones, an Associate Professor in Political Geography at the University of Hawai’i Manoa, who has visited many chitmahals on both sides of the border, explains further, “After decades in this situation many people have found ways around it through bribes to officials or through friends who helped them to obtain the documents they needed, such as school enrolment forms for their children. However, the situation was not stable or secure. They were extremely vulnerable to theft and violence because the police had no jurisdiction in the enclaves.”
 

Rupsana Begum, 7, (pink dress) and Monalisa Akter, 7, (orange dress) are from an enclave but were able to come and study at Sher-e-Bangla Government School because their parents managed to acquire fake documents and were able to pay the school.

In Dhoholakhagrabari enclave students and their teacher sit in a madrassa class. Because enclave children have a difficult time accessing the education system in Bangladesh the locals of this enclave formed an Islamic Foundation funded on donations.

Today, after decades left living in limbo in these randomly placed no-man’s lands, around 47,000 people on the Bangladeshi side and some 14,000 on the Indian side have finally been given the right make a choice: stay where they have lived for generations with official citizenship of the country that will absorb them, or return to their country of origin.

None of the residents living in Bangladeshi enclaves within India asked to return to Bangladesh and as a result they will now all become Indian citizens. However, on the other side of the border in Bangladesh, whilst the vast majority of the Indian enclave dwellers decided to stay and become Bangladeshi citizens, 979 people requested to return to India. For these families, the enclave saga has yet to end.

Of those 979 individuals, a total of 406 come from Debiganj district. In 2011, a team of Indian officials visited every home in every enclave in Bangladesh and produced the first ever detailed census of all those living within the Indian enclaves. This report formed the basis of all subsequent decisions on the status of each person living in the enclaves.
 

An old lady inside her home, which has no running water or electricity, in Dayuti enclave.
 

Dhonobala Rani, 70, gets emotional knowing that she has to leave her son (in the blue shirt) behind in Bangladesh, as she takes Indian citizenship.

Several months after my visit to document the enclaves during the final days of their existence, those who had chosen to leave for India finally crossed the border, leaving their homes in Bangladesh forever. In India they were given land and began the process of integrating into Indian society. Those who chose to stay behind in Bangladesh also started to receive such basic rights as eligibility to vote and access to health care.

Let us hope that after decades of struggle on these isolated political islands, the lives of these ex-enclaves dwellers can begin to reach some level of normalcy. In the end, after so many years of uncertainty, the world’s strangest border region has now become a thing of the past.

A lady from Ponchoki Bhajini village, in the enclave of Dhoholakhagrabari. She has chosen to leave for India, to start a new life as an Indian citizen. 
 

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA.

LUKE DUGGLEBY

Luke Duggleby is a British freelance documentary and travel photographer living in Bangkok.

VIDEO: My Other Life as a Photographer in Denmark

The subject of this short piece is a professional photographer, Lars Schneider, specifically focusing on travel and lifestyle photography. This was shot during his trip to the Faroe Islands to shoot landscapes. Witness the wild nature of this environment yourself in his short film.

How many Gigatons of CO2?

Examine the CO2 data for yourself: http://bit.ly/Gigatons_C02

THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED BY DAVID MCCANDLESS AT INFORMATION IS BEAUTIFUL.

Regenerative Agriculture: our best shot at cooling the planet?

It’s getting hot out there. For a stretch of 16 months running through August 2016, new global temperature records were set every month.[1] Ice cover in the Arctic sea hit a new low this past summer, at 525,000 square miles less than normal.[2] And apparently we’re not doing much to stop it: according to Professor Kevin Anderson, one of Britain’s leading climate scientists, we’ve already blown our chances of keeping global warming below the “safe” threshold of 1.5 degrees.[3]
 

If we want to stay below the upper ceiling of 2 degrees, though, we still have a shot. But it’s going to take a monumental effort. Anderson and his colleagues estimate that in order to keep within this threshold, we need to start reducing emissions by a sobering 8-10% per year, from now until we reach “net zero” in 2050.[4] If that doesn’t sound difficult enough, here’s the clincher: efficiency improvements and clean energy technologies will only win us reductions of about 4% per year at most.

How to make up the difference is one of the biggest questions of the 21st century. There are a number of proposals out there. One is to capture the CO2 that pours out of our power stations, liquefy it, and store it in chambers deep under the ground. Another is to seed the oceans with iron to trigger huge algae blooms that will absorb CO2. Others take a different approach, such as putting giant mirrors in space to deflect some of the sun’s rays, or pumping aerosols into the stratosphere to create man-made clouds.

Unfortunately, in all of these cases either the risks are too dangerous, or we don’t have the technology yet.

This leaves us in a bit of a bind. But while engineers are scrambling to come up with grand geo-engineering schemes, they may be overlooking a simpler, less glamorous solution. It has to do with soil.

Soil is the second biggest reservoir of carbon on the planet, next to the oceans. It holds four times more carbon than all the plants and trees in the world. But human activity like deforestation and industrial farming – with its intensive ploughing, monoculture and heavy use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides – is ruining our soils at breakneck speed, killing the organic materials that they contain. Now 40% of agricultural soil is classed as “degraded” or “seriously degraded”. In fact, industrial farming has so damaged our soils that a third of the world’s farmland has been destroyed in the past four decades.[5]

As our soils degrade, they are losing their ability to hold carbon, releasing enormous plumes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

There is, however, a solution. Scientists and farmers around the world are pointing out that we can regenerate degraded soils by switching from intensive industrial farming to more ecological methods – not just organic fertiliser, but also no-tillage, composting, and crop rotation. Here’s the brilliant part: as the soils recover, they not only regain their capacity to hold CO2, they begin to actively pull additional CO2 out of the atmosphere.

The science on this is quite exciting. A study published recently by the US National Academy of Sciences claims that regenerative farming can sequester 3% of our global carbon emissions.[6] An article in Science suggests it could be up to 15%.[7] And new research from the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, although not yet peer-reviewed, says sequestration rates could be as high as 40%.[8] The same report argues that if we apply regenerative techniques to the world’s pastureland as well, we could capture more than 100% of global emissions. In other words, regenerative farming may be our best shot at actually cooling the planet.

Yet despite having the evidence on their side, proponents of regenerative farming – like the international farmers’ association La Via Campesina – are fighting an uphill battle. The multinational corporations that run the industrial food system seem to be dead set against it because it threatens their monopoly power – power that relies on seeds linked to patented chemical fertilisers and pesticides. They are well aware that their methods are causing climate change, but they insist that it’s a necessary evil: if we want to feed the world’s growing population, we don’t have a choice – it’s the only way to secure high yields.

Scientists are calling their bluff. First of all, feeding the world isn’t about higher yields; it’s about fairer distribution. We already grow enough food for 10 billion people.[9] In any case, it can be argued that regenerative farming actually increases crop yields over the long term by enhancing soil fertility and improving resilience against drought and flooding. So as climate change makes farming more difficult, this may be our best bet for food security, too.

The battle here is not just between two different methods. It is between two different ways of relating to the land: one that sees the soil as an object from which profit must be extracted at all costs, and one that recognizes the interdependence of living systems and honours the principles of balance and harmony.

Ultimately, this is about more than just soil. It is about something much larger. As Pope Francis put it in his much-celebrated encyclical, our present ecological crisis is the sign of a cultural pathology. “We have come to see ourselves as the lords and masters of the Earth, entitled to plunder her at will. The sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life are symptoms that reflect the violence present in our hearts. We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the Earth; that we breathe her air and receive life from her waters.”

Maybe our engineers are missing the point. The problem with geo-engineering is that it proceeds from the very same logic that got us into this mess in the first place: one that treats the land as something to be subdued, dominated and consumed. But the solution to climate change won’t be found in the latest schemes to bend our living planet to the will of man. Perhaps instead it lies in something much more down to earth – an ethic of care and healing, starting with the soils on which our existence depends.

Of course, regenerative farming doesn’t offer a permanent solution to the climate crisis; soils can only hold a finite amount of carbon. We still need to get off fossil fuels, and – most importantly – we have to kick our obsession with endless exponential growth and downsize our material economy to bring it back in tune with ecological cycles. But it might buy us some time to get our act together.

[1] “August 2016 Global Temperatures Set 16th Straight Monthly Record”, weather.com, Sept. 20, 2016.

[2] “Arctic sea ice crashes to record low for June”, The Guardian, July 7, 2016.

[3] “Going beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change”, London School of Economics lecture, Feb 4, 2016.

[4] Anderson, Kevin, “Avoiding dangerous climate change demands de-growth strategies from wealthier nations”, Nov. 25, 2013.

[5] “Earth has lost 1/3 of arable land in last 40 years”, The Guardian, Dec. 2, 2015. 

[6] Gattinger, Andreas, et al, “Enhanced topsoil carbon stocks under organic farming”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, vol. 109 no. 44.

[7] Lal, R., “Soil Carbon Sequestration Impacts on Global Climate Change and Food Security”, Science magazine, June 11, 2004.

[8] Rodale Institute, “Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change”, April 17, 2014.

[9] Altieri, Miguel et al, “We Already Grow Enough Food for 10 Billion People … and Still Can’t End Hunger”, Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, July, 2012.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON LOCAL FUTURES. 

JASON HICKEL

Jason Hickel is an anthropologist at the London School of Economics. He specializes in globalization, finance, democracy, violence, and ritual, and is the author of "Democracy as Death: The Moral Order of Anti-Liberal Politics in South Africa".

Is Voluntourism Worthwhile?

Is it worth it to volunteer where there isn’t a sustainable social, political, or environmental impact? I think of those stories of Habitat for Humanity where volunteers think they build a house during the day only to have their crappy work torn down and redone later.

Sincerely,
Wants To Fix The World

Thank you, so much, WTFTW, for giving my first one-word answer to a question of the week:

Nope.

Okay, now to go into a bit more detail: The voluntourism impulse is an awesome one. It means that people don’t just want to take from the places they visit, but to give back as well. It’s akin to helping with the dishes when you’ve eaten dinner at a friend’s house. It’s all that’s right about humankind.

Which is why it’s really depressing that it’s usually a waste of time.

The story I believe you’re referring to is from this excellent article by Pippa Biddle, which is worth giving a read. She talks about a voluntourism trip she took in high school to Tanzania, which cost $3000 a pop:

“Our mission while at the orphanage was to build a library. Turns out that we, a group of highly educated private boarding school students were so bad at the most basic construction work that each night the men had to take down the structurally unsound bricks we had laid and rebuild the structure so that, when we woke up in the morning, we would be unaware of our failure. It is likely that this was a daily ritual. Us mixing cement and laying bricks for 6+ hours, them undoing our work after the sun set, re-laying the bricks, and then acting as if nothing had happened so that the cycle could continue.”

What Biddle concludes is that the problem wasn’t that a library wasn’t needed, it was that she simply wasn’t the one to do it. This is the case with many voluntourism trips: they exist more to give the volunteers the endorphin rush humans get when doing something nice for someone else than they do to actually help. The presence of unskilled volunteers may, in some cases, actually be more of a hindrance than a help.

But sometimes voluntourism is more insidious. The popularity of supporting Cambodian orphanages among western tourists has actually fueled a market for orphans. There are the reports of voluntourists actually taking jobs from better-qualified locals. And for many locals, voluntourism looks more like an expiation of colonial guilt than a good-hearted act of service. In his book Travel as a Political Act (1), travel industry titan Rick Steves points out the name that Salvadorans have for Americans who come to visit and express solidarity, only to return home a few days later feeling self-satisfied: “round-trip revolutionaries.”

Just this week, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez, founder of Latina Rebels, made an extremely strong case against voluntourism. Rodriguez was born in poverty in Nicaragua, and vividly remembers the many visiting westerners. She remembers them as good people, but:

"They really wanted us to like them, because they loved us — indiscriminately. It was the sort of love where they did not get our mailing addresses or phone numbers, because it was not about becoming lifelong friends. They loved being around me, it was something about my poverty, brownness, and how they felt like they were saving me. They loved that feeling."

She continues:

"I do not have fond memories of the Beckys and Chads who came to my country and took pictures with me so that they could hang the photos in their dorm rooms and go on with their lives.

Those same Beckys did not stand up against Trump’s xenophobic agenda. The Chads stayed silent during that Cinco de Mayo party that their roommates hosted, perpetuating problematic stereotypes about ALL Latinxs. The Beckys know that NAFTA and CAFTA rulings keep kids like me in poverty, but still shop at stores known for using slave labor and sweatshops.

Those Chads and Beckys have never done anything for me."

As a white person from America, this can sound harsh (2). But it’s worth noting that, especially in Central and South American countries, our country has played a pretty significant role in supporting horrible, genocidal dictatorships in the name of protecting “American business interests.” These dictatorships have frequently taken the place of legitimate left-leaning democracies.

It doesn’t matter if you agree with this assessment of the history of US colonialism in the western hemisphere or not: it’s a fairly widely-held perception in the rest of the Americas (and in parts of the Middle East as well). And in that view of the world, an American paying thousands of dollars to come down for a weekend so he can build a library, feel good about himself, and then return to his affluence, seems like an inadequate form of repentance.

So… should you participate in voluntourism at all?

My suggestion is a gentle no, with a set of clarifications:

1. If you have a set of skills that could be effectively utilized in your destination, absolutely go. Have a medical degree? Join Doctors Without Borders and go do some good. Can you do some consulting work with local NGOs, or provide training that may be desperately needed? Please, go.

2. “Voluntourism” and “volunteering” are not the same thing. If you’re really committing to a project — and not just rolling a pre-packaged project into a vacation — then what I’m saying doesn’t apply. Looking at you, JETs, TEFLs, and Peace Corpsers.

Personally, I think the better thing to do when going abroad is to simply listen to the stories, the history, and the culture of the people that you’re visiting. You should not assume to have answers to a society’s problems after a weekend visit. You don’t. Instead, listen, read, and learn. If you want to help as efficiently and effectively as possible, donate money to people who are already in place to help, and then work on making your society a better place. A more humane America would help make a more humane world.

Still want to try voluntourism?

If you do want to participate in voluntourism, my Matador colleague Richard Stupart put together an excellent guide to finding the most ethical voluntourism projects possible (and, I should note, there are good projects. It’s not all cynicism and neocolonialism). Feel free to add other good ethical voluntourism resources in the comments.

Footnotes

1. Review: meh.
2. It may also paint white voluntourists with too broad a brush — I have no doubt that some Chads and Beckys have spoken out against Trump, NAFTA, and CAFTA, but that’s kind of beside the point — the statement is, as the philosopher Ken Wilber says, “true but partial,” and the truth deserves as much attention as the nuance it misses.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON DON'T BE A DICK TRAVEL.

MATT HERSHBERGER

Matt Hershberger is a writer and blogger who focuses on travel, culture, politics, and global citizenship. His hobbies include scotch consumption, profanity, and human rights activism. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and his Kindle. You can check out his work at the Matador Network, or over at his website.