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I can understand the need to sample other cultures but the luxury an American traveling to a country like Ethiopia will have over it's everyday citizens, is the luxury to leave. Even if you decide you wan't to stay, deep down you'll always know that you can return home if you want to. You may abandon the luxuries of being an American on a physical level, but psychologically you'll always have that comfort zone.
I have family in Egypt and, while it's nice to think about their exotic life, the reality is is that they're deeply unhappy. It's not that they necessarily want the material things we have, but certain freedoms that we take for granted. If I were to tell them how hard i have it in Britain, I'd expect my head to be paraded on a spike pretty damned quickly. These people are truly stuck, and the last thing they want to hear (especially from those of us in the West) is how great they have it.
I don't for a minute think SuchFriends is naive enough to believe that Ethiopia is some kind of a Rastafarian utopia and i do hope it's all he wants it to be when he eventually moves there, but its his ability to do just that which makes him fortunate to be an American citizen. The freedom to leave is one of the greatest freedoms you can have - unfortunately most people will never have that freedom.
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