Toxic Charity #4.4: Making charity less toxic:

• Limit, as much as practical, visually obvious markers of coming from a different cultural or socio-economic group.
  
  • If the local group is not warning shorts, neither should the visiting group. These kinds issues can be determined ahead of time by asking people, such as the receiving agency, blunt questions. Beware that often the receiving agency, not wanting to offend the group, will hedge on their comments. Insist on “what do your people do, not just what is acceptable.”
    
  • No expensive clothing, jewelry, electronics. (I know, you can't wrest the cell phone from their hands – but you can forbid their use on the work site – “you don't want it to be broken so you can't use it the rest of the week.”)