I've just finished reading one of the most disturbing articles I've read in a long time. It's about a Kenyan tour-company which has started offering tours of Kibera, known as the African continent's largest slum.

'"People are getting tired of the Maasai Mara and wildlife. No one is enlightening us about other issues. So I've come up with a new thing -- slum tours," enthused James Asudi, general manager of Kenyan-based Victoria Safaris.'

This just seems sick to me. It does to other people too.

"What is this fascination with Kibera among people who do not know what real poverty means?" asked the Daily Nation, a Kenyan Newspaper.

'"They see us like puppets, they want to come and take pictures, have a little walk, tell their friends they've been to the worst slum in Africa," said car-wash worker David Kabala. "But nothing changes for us. If someone comes, let him do something for us. Or if they really want to know how we think and feel, come and spend a night, or walk round when it's pouring with rain here and the paths are like rivers."'

"Visits by tourists, which reached a crescendo during the recent anti-capitalist World Social Forum in Nairobi, were testing the local hospitality culture to the limit."

I think this last quote from the article sums up just how wrong this whole thing is.
"Kibera is the rave spot in Kenya," wrote one columnist sarcastically. "For where else can one see it all in one simple stop?The AIDS victims dying slowly on a cold, cardboard bed. The breastless teenager. ... Plastic-eating goats fighting small children ... and -- ah yes -- the famous 'shit-rolls-downhill-flying-toilets'. It is unbeatable."

This is what happens when all that comes up in western media when 'Africa' is mentioned is poverty, injustice, and war. These are the thing people now most commonly associate with Africa, because of constant repitition. Not to deny that these things exist, they do, but Africa is so much more than that. The peoples on this continent, (where I have never had the opportunity to travel to but only to know people who come from there) have vibrant lives and cultures and form the oldest societies on earth, not to mention the unbelievable richness and beauty of the continent geographically. I'm not in anyway qualified to talk about this subject. But slum tourism is rediculous, and I think all too common. Might "short term projects" also be guilty of this?

If you want to read the entire article for yourself click HERE.