I am in the business of buying my own self enlightenment. I am the tourist who goes in search of the bigger picture, takes photos of cultural symbols to put on facebook, and finds ways of working my journey into every conversation. I am the target audience for the marketers of volunteer tourism brochures because I feel as though my soul is incomplete, and they are selling the missing piece. They are selling the journey which will lift the guilt of my consumerism, allow me to grow spiritually, and gain cultural capital all in one trip. I am a voluntourist.
I had finished my degree with “the world is my oyster” attitude but had a lot more learning to do. I wanted to shock my system, see the world, and come back with a new understanding. I needed to do something bigger than getting drunk in another city. It had to be something major, somewhere as far from home as I could get, where another country felt like another world.
Africa it was.
