Wide-Open World by John Marshall (2 stars)
Wide-Open World: How Volunteering Around the Globe Changed One Family’s Lives Forever by John Marshal
I was so excited to start reading this book because it had so much that appeals to my life specifically, but unfortunately it ended up devolving into the worst aspects of “volun-tourism”. The most telling quote summing up the entire book is this: “Whether it was wrong or right, helping or hurting, that’s what I did.“
In the first few chapters I was a little skeptical. Even though the writing is surprisingly good, there was so much detail about each of the author’s family members that I worried the focus of the book would be on their individual transformations rather than the experiences they were going to have all over the world, but that didn’t end up becoming too much of a problem. What did end up grating is that he paints his family as incredibly unlikable. His teenage kids are bratty and self-centered and I feel bad for how he portrays them and his (future ex)wife throughout the entire book. Also, to say they traveled the world is a bit of stretch as they visit 4 countries total.
The first part about the animal sanctuary in Costa Rica had me writhing in jealousy and laughing at the author’s mishaps with the monkeys. This is where his kids start to come off as entitled and annoying, not showing up to work on time, goofing off scuba diving in the middle of the day, but the author’s loving descriptions of them helps to soften it a little bit and they seem to get their acts together for a while. In their defense, I could totally imagine my disgust if my family had tried to drag me out of school to a foreign country to live with them in a one-room cabin in the woods, even if the idea of doing that as an adult absolutely delights me. From the first sanctuary they volunteer at, which seemed reasonably decent, they move on to other sketchier places and I started to question the author’s motives in taking and planning (or not planning, as the situation became) this “year of service”.
What initially kept me reading was when I saw that Part Two was about WWOOFing. I don’t know if the acronym has changed since Marshall’s memoir, but it stands for WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farms (not Willing Workers, like he wrote) but it’s definitely high up on my list of things I want to do at some point, though most locations only pay you in room and board (which is still amazing, just not quite aligned with my plans for a working holiday). And to my delight, they actually did their WWOOFing in New Zealand! Unfortunately, this proved to be the most reasonable and ethical volun-tourism they do in the book. Things started going way downhill from there.
It starts out cringe-y but just continues to snowball. What I originally found interesting and sweet became way too deeply personal. The author’s stories about wrestling with religion as a child were the breaking point of tolerance for me, and his kids and former wife must be mortified by how much detail he put into their personal affairs.
Marshall openly admits to doing little to no research into any of the places they volunteer. He recommends people volunteer places merely because “it feels good” and suggests following in his footsteps by googling the name of a country and the word “volunteer”. It was an an enjoyable read, but the further I got into it, the more I started to doubt the ethics of the author and his family’s choices. There are a few sentences spared for acknowledging their privilege, but a lot more spent on describing how much the children and families they came into contact with in Thailand and India worshiped and loved them for their white skin.
They “volunteer” at an orphanage in India where they openly admit there was pretty much nothing helpful for them to do, so they just played with the kids for a month and threw a talent show. A lot of page space is spent talking about how disappointed his son is that the Indian girls tease him where the Thai girls were all madly in love with him. He complains endlessly about not being appreciated as a parent. “Why can’t my kids be as grateful as these poor Indian children/orphans?!” The author spends a long time describing the lavish praise laid upon them all by the Thai students they “taught” English for a month (with absolutely no teaching background or training of any kind) even though he is also brazenly open about the fact that he couldn’t care less about learning other languages himself.
The lowest point of the book for me was when his family gets the chance to see the Dalai Lama speak. There are thousands of people there, many who have traveled far distances in poor conditions, many walking and sleeping outside in order to attend this historic event and consider themselves lucky to sit on the floor way back from the stage just to be in the presence of this religious leader. And Marshall and his family, by his own admission, show up LATE and when there aren’t any fold out chairs left for Westerners, they decide to just SIT ON THE STAGE and were smugly proud of somehow being the only people permitted to do it. And to make it even better, they thought it was boring so they didn’t even bother returning the next day to see more of the talks.
To top it off, in the epilogue the author casually reveals that he and his ex-wife are anti-vaxxers!! I can only imagine what his response is to COVID right now. He does randomly throw in a plea to cut down on plastic water bottle usage at the end though?? What is even happening here?
I did enjoy how honest and transparent the author was throughout about their plans. Even though the first few chapters build up to the idea of their big “year of service” to begin in October, they don’t manage to set out until February and they cut their trip down to 6 months so that their oldest son could have a full senior year at school. Marshall even includes specific dollar amounts on what they saved and what it cost to fly to these areas and book their weird working-vacations.
In an attempt to be fair I will say that they mention in the end that the author went back to the Indian orphanage later and helps them out for a bit before going on to start a non-profit recognizing well-run orphanages or something. I guess that’s cool.
Overall I think this book does way more harm than good and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Stories like these promote an unethical version of tourism while convincing people that they’re “helping” (or like the author, sometimes even aware you may be actively causing harm!) as a way to save money on your world tour. They got to have a cheap, life-changing trip out of their comfort zone, but at what cost to the locals they left in their dust?
