Anonymous wrote:
NP. Of course but a lot of the people you DO encounter are the ones begging because they go where tourists are. And lots of them are being exploited by their own people so you can’t “fix” or even slightly help people. You end up enriching the corrupt in the country rather than truly helping with your tourism dollars. Some people don’t consider that a pleasant experience. It is downright depressing to feel helpless dismay. Anyone thinking they are helping are fooling themselves.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To start, you could stop calling them "third world" countries.

People are living in extreme poverty all over the world whether you see it or not or travel to those countries or not.

I think everyone should see how other people live, so you can acknowledge your privilege and learn the reality of the world. Yes, it's hard to see suffering, but it can also give you important perspective.

So do you think that poor people exist just to make us aware of our privilege? So it is like a field trip so you can see the slums and then go home oh so enlightened by how humble and happy and hard working these people are despite their poverty?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've traveled a lot but not to many third world countries. I have been reluctant because I feel as if bearing witness to the grinding poverty would ruin the experience for me. I couldn't sleep at night in India knowing that right outside my window there are people without the most basic means to survive. Yes, I know when I got to sleep here they are still there but somehow the thought of lookign people in the eye and not really being able to help them while touring around the country and treating them as a bit of the 'experience' feels uncomfortable for me. I mean we took a helicopter trip to a tiny island in Hawaii with fancy picnic lunches and I ended up spending the whole time on the island feeding our lunches to the skinny dogs we stumbled upon. I'm not good with proximal suffering. How do others manage this or am I just too empathic?

What? This is the craziest post that I've read on here. Do you really believe that every single person that you meet in a third world (i.e., not US or Europe) is below poverty, living on the streets and begging for money? You do realize that there are lots of well educated, employed, business oriented folks in these "sh&thole countries", to quote our ex-president, that you're talking about, right? These countries have vibrant cities, art museums, architecture, financial districts, historical monuments, nature reserves, great restaurants and the whole shebang. It's not all Slumdog Millionaire.

NP. Of course but a lot of the people you DO encounter are the ones begging because they go where tourists are. And lots of them are being exploited by their own people so you can’t “fix” or even slightly help people. You end up enriching the corrupt in the country rather than truly helping with your tourism dollars. Some people don’t consider that a pleasant experience. It is downright depressing to feel helpless dismay. Anyone thinking they are helping are fooling themselves.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've traveled a lot but not to many third world countries. I have been reluctant because I feel as if bearing witness to the grinding poverty would ruin the experience for me. I couldn't sleep at night in India knowing that right outside my window there are people without the most basic means to survive. Yes, I know when I got to sleep here they are still there but somehow the thought of lookign people in the eye and not really being able to help them while touring around the country and treating them as a bit of the 'experience' feels uncomfortable for me. I mean we took a helicopter trip to a tiny island in Hawaii with fancy picnic lunches and I ended up spending the whole time on the island feeding our lunches to the skinny dogs we stumbled upon. I'm not good with proximal suffering. How do others manage this or am I just too empathic?

What? This is the craziest post that I've read on here. Do you really believe that every single person that you meet in a third world (i.e., not US or Europe) is below poverty, living on the streets and begging for money? You do realize that there are lots of well educated, employed, business oriented folks in these "sh&thole countries", to quote our ex-president, that you're talking about, right? These countries have vibrant cities, art museums, architecture, financial districts, historical monuments, nature reserves, great restaurants and the whole shebang. It's not all Slumdog Millionaire.

Anonymous wrote:OP needs to remember that many of the 'third world' countries are third world for a reason.

Their resources and commodities were stripped from them to make "first world" countries rich. Colonization, slavery, dehumanizing generations of people, using exporting their raw materials...

What makes her uncomfortable is the uncomfortable truth.

Anonymous wrote:I've traveled a lot but not to many third world countries. I have been reluctant because I feel as if bearing witness to the grinding poverty would ruin the experience for me. I couldn't sleep at night in India knowing that right outside my window there are people without the most basic means to survive. Yes, I know when I got to sleep here they are still there but somehow the thought of lookign people in the eye and not really being able to help them while touring around the country and treating them as a bit of the 'experience' feels uncomfortable for me. I mean we took a helicopter trip to a tiny island in Hawaii with fancy picnic lunches and I ended up spending the whole time on the island feeding our lunches to the skinny dogs we stumbled upon. I'm not good with proximal suffering. How do others manage this or am I just too empathic?

Anonymous wrote:I've traveled a lot but not to many third world countries. I have been reluctant because I feel as if bearing witness to the grinding poverty would ruin the experience for me. I couldn't sleep at night in India knowing that right outside my window there are people without the most basic means to survive. Yes, I know when I got to sleep here they are still there but somehow the thought of lookign people in the eye and not really being able to help them while touring around the country and treating them as a bit of the 'experience' feels uncomfortable for me. I mean we took a helicopter trip to a tiny island in Hawaii with fancy picnic lunches and I ended up spending the whole time on the island feeding our lunches to the skinny dogs we stumbled upon. I'm not good with proximal suffering. How do others manage this or am I just too empathic?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not going to judge you, but I will recommend not just getting on a plane for Africa just yet.

Try Eastern Europe and South America first. Then India and after that Southeast Asia. Once you’ve done all of that, then I’d recommend South Africa/Namibia/Botswana. Feeling okay after that, then Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia. Only once you’ve done all that would I recommend West Africa. And then once you done West Africa I would recommend Central Africa.

Interesting that you put India above so many of these nations that do not have nearly the same scale of poverty.

India can be really tough bc the sheer size of the population, not just the scope of the wealth gap. IMO it's one of the hardest on this metric

Anonymous wrote:This should make it into one of top most DCUMish threads of all time. The privilege and the cluelessness. And it says a lot OP (and some of the responses FYI) that you only think of poverty as being something that can be experienced in developing countries. Are the poor that invisible in this area?