In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

249 A profitable commerce had started in the States of companies setting up programs for students or other young people to travel overseas for three months, have an overseas experience, and help, supposedly, local nonprofits by participating in short-term projects. Many charge these students about $12,000. The problem is that these companies, and the students, expect the local struggling nonprofits to provide the space and supervision for these projects to take place. Bahia Street was on their list (they likely found us through our website), so now Bahia Street in Salvador was being inundated with eager young foreigners wanting to teach the girls, do photo projects, whatever. And the girls were trying to study for their exams. I came into Bahia Street one afternoon to find Fio almost in tears. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Fio, what’s wrong?” He waved his hand and walked into the other room. After a few moments, he returned. “I’m sure they don’t mean any harm,” he said. “They’re arrogant,” Rita said. “They wouldn’t treat a school in their own country like this.” “Are you going to tell me what happened?” Rita sighed. “More students wanting to be volunteers. We have to control this somehow, Margaret. We told them we didn’t want them right now, but they just walked in anyway. They speak in English so nobody knows what they’re saying. They walk into the classrooms and then the girls get all excited. It takes us the rest of the day to get them settled down again.” “Why didn’t you just tell the students to get out?” Fio scratched his ear. “Well, I told them we’re busy, it wasn’t a good time.” “I don’t think they understood us,” Rita said. I felt anger rise in my stomach. “What are we? Some kind of tourist site so these groups can make money off us?” “It’s not the students’ fault,” Fio said. “Yes, it is, in part,” Rita said. “They’re just ignorant. They have this sense of entitlement that they can just come in, that because we’re twenty-six storms 250 dance lest we all fall down a Third World country, in their eyes, they’re somehow superior to us.” She turned to me. “They’re not all like that. One black American woman, Janelle, she’s good, makes an appointment, only talks to the kids outside class, speaks Portuguese, is very respectful.” “Are the whites worse than the blacks?” I asked. Both Fio and Rita laughed. “No,” Fio said, “the blacks are worse, if anything. I think because they’re black they somehow think Bahia belongs to them.” “Oh boy.” I sat down. “We have to figure out some way to control this.” “We could start by making a rule that everyone who comes in here has to speak Portuguese,” Rita said. “But that means most of them won’t be able to say anything,” Fio said. “Well, if they speak English, you can’t understand them anyway,” I said, “so I agree with Rita. To show respect, they should speak only Portuguese. It undermines your authority as well, them speaking some language that the directors of the Center can’t understand.” Rita nodded. “She’s right, Fio. And Margaret, we have to be more vigilant with the lists of people allowed to visit; maybe we could make, once or twice a week, a time for visitors to tour the Center. But now I have students coming all the time. I don’t know if you’ve talked with them in the States, given them permission to come or they’ve just found out about us somehow here.” “I e-mail nearly everyone to say we do not take volunteers because all our staff is local. I should put that on our website as well.” Rita laughed. “Who would have thought social justice tourism would be a problem we would face?” Just then, three students walked in, one white, two of partly African descent, one of whom was very light. “Hi!” one of them said in English, “we’ve come to observe some of the girls in their classes.” “They’re studying now,” I said, also in English. “Rita, the director here, doesn’t permit outsiders in the classrooms. I’m sorry. If you’d like to make an appointment to talk with her, you may. But also, we have made a rule here, that everyone only speaks Portuguese...

Share