Ben in Ghana

I was reading the blog of my friend Ben Best, who is currently working in northern Ghana as a EWB voluneer. He posts regularly to his blog at http://ben-in-ghaha.blogspot.com - some really intersting comments on development and westerners role in development. I've taken a quote from his latest post talking about an area he visited for just one week and how he felt like just one more western tourist visiting. Check it out:

"The second reason I was so frustrated was the fact that I was only there for a week. I was really just another short time visitor that came to Nwodua just leave without really contributing. I was talking to a group of the youth one evening about this and they definitely felt the same way. The told me that so many people from all around the world had come to visit Nwodua to learn from them but not once had anyone from Nwodua ever traveled outside of their country. Their request to me was to find someway to raise the funds to give one of them the chance to travel. It was tough to explain that I am student still trying to pay for school, while at the same time I couldn’t deny that I was there, there was money somewhere that paid for my trip, but no money to pay for theirs. Here was a community that was working so hard for its own development, and here I was, another Western coming to take away what I could without having anything to offer in return."

-Ben Best, UWaterloo EWB Junior Fellow (overseas volunteer) in Ghana

PS. I'm going to Europe soon! Amsterdam, France