Poverty - the hot tourist attraction.

I was disturbed by the poverty. I wanted to understand it. I wanted to do something about it. Going to have a look at it was part of my reason for doing that.

I don't think my motives for my poverty-tourism weren't entirely dishonourable, but I cringe at my lack of self-awareness nonetheless.

The people I met did not like being photographed, a concern I was too quick to dismiss. I had no notion of why they did not like being treated as objects of curiosity or how they felt "done to" by my lens. I honestly thought I was doing them a favour because I was trying to understand....

I am now profoundly ashamed of this. And I am encountering this sense of shame again in trying to write a blog on poverty as response to an invitation from Blog Action Day 2008.

I'm taking part because I still believe poverty matters but 20 years on from days of my tourism, I now feel severely inhibited.

How can I write about something I have no experience of? How do I find a voice that isn't patronising? How can I see rather than gawp?

I think I know the answer...

By going to be with the poor, by allowing myself to be changed through genuine friendships with them, by listening to them tell their own stories in their own words and by being open to the possibility that when that happens "poor" might merely be my interpretation of their situation and not a way they would describe themselves at all.

But I haven't done that. I'm too busy. I've got a child to look after. I've got to earn money.

I have no doubt I am all the poorer for it.