[India]

The most powerful and original travel magic for me was walking through poor Himalayan and Andean villages. In those early trips, every day was an opportunity to learn details about family customs and economies. And it was so new. Sleeping on dirt floors in simple mud dwellings, sitting around a cooking fire inside a house, hearing and participating in various rituals and festivals. (Development in Nepal Article)

But over the years, the thrill has dissipated. I’ve come to know just how opaque these lives are. There’s much we can never know.

And I’ve come to see that a portion of the psychological benefit for relatively wealthy westerners visiting poor parts of the world is the power and wealth that we feel attributed to us as we walk along. We feel the continual deference from others and we like those feelings.

It’s a very unpleasant dynamic, and one that extends to many westerners living in developing countries. I remember conversations with administrators for aid organizations who had become so accustomed to the lifestyle that they could never imagine going home. Servants, housekeepers, night watchmen, cooks, large gated houses. They would lose a huge piece of their psychological sense of status and wealth if they left. Such conditions could not be re-created here for them.

I’ve come to increasingly dislike the symbol that we are to these people. They marvel at our material stuff – boots, sunglasses, packs. By our very presence many infer that we don’t even have to work.