orphange tourism

if you are interested in making my skin crawl and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, all you simply must do is tell me that you or someone you know are planning on heading to africa to volunteer at an orphanage.

for quite some time, i wasn't sure why exactly this thought upset me so much, but recently i have read some people's clearly articulated thoughts that seem to take the confusing train wrecks of information in my head and put it more succintly than i have been able to.

• Saundra Schimmelpfennig at the Huffington Post, predicting the haiti orphan rescue
• And at her blog Good Intentions Are Not Enough in the posts does funding orphanages create orphans? and hug-an-orphan vacations
• Tales From the Hood had a good post about how to choose who to support and why not to support orphanages

the only thing that i can add to their insightful commentary is that i successfully convinced someone not to go to africa to volunteer the other day and instead to simply go as a tourist to appreciate the gorgeous flora and fauna, meet some interesting people, and take photos along the way.  just like tourists to other places regularly do.

so that's something.