CHAPITRE 4. CONSUMING POVERTY IN THE VOLUNTEER
4.1. L ITERATURE REVIEW
4.3.3 D ISILLUSIONMENT NARRATIVE
Volunteer tourism is defined as an alternative form of tourism. People escape mainstream tourism and are looking for experiences out of the capitalist logic.
For example, in his blog, John described himself as an artist and anti-conformist,
“disgusted with money.” Alienated in his materialistic world, he decided to
“embark on a volunteer adventure” and give up all his possessions, as he explains in the extract below.
“This incident [a flood in the basement where he lived that caused him to lose much of his belongings] has forced me to examine the practicality of my new philosophies involving money and material possessions.
These same ideals are the reason that I decided to embark on a volunteer adventure in the first place. Eighteen months ago I had become severely disillusioned with capitalism, worried that our country (he is referring to USA) had transformed into something cold and calculated, pursuing ever-more money and power at the expense of the average person’s quality of life. Disgusted with money, I gave away the majority of my possessions, moved out of my two-bedroom apartment and into a tiny basement, and read Into the Wild over and over again for several months while fantasizing about disappearing forever into some obscure rainforest in a secret corner of the world”. (John, blog)
The confrontation with everyday life at the orphanage, far from postcards and advertisements, and the interaction with host families, kids, other volunteers, and local organizations made the volunteer tourists experience a degree of disillusionment. Volunteers felt disenchanted after discovering some of the
Chapitre 4. Consuming poverty in the volunteer tourism experience: An ethnographic study in a Nepalese orphanage
hidden facets of volunteer tourism. Most of them paid a huge amount of money to the sending organization with the intent to give back to the community and where did it go? It didn’t go to the orphanage; it doesn’t go to salaries … I mean, like, enough generous seventy-five percent, that’s generous!
(He was ironic) Ah, I actually look at the book of the record (Book of financial report), I look at the book of the orphanage, I helped them with accounting and putting things on computer…The money they get for being here (He means the money the orphanage got for receiving volunteers) which is nothing! So where the hell did the money go? It’s a lot of money, where did it all go?
Interviewer: How much did you paid?
John: Ten thousand dollars! I think it’s a lot of money! I went to Ramesh [local organization coordinator], I love him, I really do. Like, I think he is a good person and I really like to see him. He is very friendly but I went to his house; have you been to his house? It’s huge, yeah? Very, very nice, and the house behind his is the person who runs volunteer’s organisations in Nepal, and it’s very huge too. Four people live in this house. There are a lot of people dealing with them in this house, and it’s surrounded by slums. I don’t know, and maybe that kind of thing bothers me a little bit, and I kind of wish that I could know a little bit more about where all my money went “(John, interview)
In addition, for many volunteers, the journey to a Nepalese orphanage is a humanitarian mission in which the volunteer embodies the role of the saviour. As the previous narratives reveal, volunteers discovered that the locals and children
Chapitre 4. Consuming poverty in the volunteer tourism experience: An ethnographic study in a Nepalese orphanage
do not need them. This reality provokes a feeling of frustration and disenchantment, especially for those who came with higher expectations. For example, John, who was into the “hero” role even before the journey started, explained that he “struggled a lot” with his inability to change the world. In a Facebook conversation I had with him after he was back in his country, he said:
“I have struggled a lot with the fact that I can’t change the way things are in Nepal, and I can’t save anyone from their plight, but I want to do as much as I can to start a discussion about these things.” (John, Facebook discussion)
Alison explained also her frustration and disappointment with herself during the first two weeks in the orphanage. She was not the person she thought she was.
Alison was hoping to be a perfect volunteer—careful, patient, the new “Mother Teresa.” Once in the field, she discovered her limitations.
“I was very disappointed with myself that I couldn’t be who I was for the first two weeks with them, constantly, like, patient all the time; I was very disappointed that I couldn’t be that person. You think that you are doing your best and I felt I was not good enough, that’s how I felt the first two weeks, at least for me. I felt, like, exhausted emotionally; intellectually I felt like I had nothing left in me and I wasn’t excited to see the kids ever.”
(Alison, interview)
The gap between the expected imagined experience and the reality is largely the consequence of the marketing and promotion strategy of the sending organizations. In most cases, these organizations build their message upon stereotypes of the underdeveloped other along with the individual need to be a
“hero,” in order to maximize their profit.
Chapitre 4. Consuming poverty in the volunteer tourism experience: An ethnographic study in a Nepalese orphanage
In order to negotiate this disenchantment and disappointment and “save face”
(Goffman, 1955), volunteers usually adopt a Western expert attitude based on local community critics. I develop these attitudes in the following section.