“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” Helder Camara
Today was the day I realised the effect that living on £1 a day was having on me because 1. I was a bit grumpy 2. My blog post yesterday was littered with spelling errors and 3. I found it difficult to concentrate on my work in the afternoon whereas normally I am at my most productive in the afternoons.
This week it happened to be the case that my work has involved a lot of sitting at my desk rather than being out and about at meetings or doing talks around the North East. So the fact that I have felt quite lethargic even though I am exerting no real physical energy has been a bit of an eye opener for me. My bike ride to work has been less enjoyable (especially the fact it is uphill on the way home) and all I want to do when I get home is sit on the sofa and do nothing whereas usually I am keen to be busy and see people or go for a run.
I struck me that the men and women I met in Zimbabwe are living on a similar yet worse diet and are also out in the searing heat for hours doing physical jobs involving hard labour. Either this or they are walking great distances to collect water which may not necessarily even be clean and safe to drink. They have the worst of both situations whereas I am a bit tired when sitting down for a long period of time - perspective acknowledged!
I mentioned how I found it difficult to concentrate on work and this was ironic as the work I was doing was trying to prepare a talk on my experiences in Zimbabwe, with a specific focus on hunger; if there was a time I should be in the zone for this talk then it should have been today! After giving myself a little pep talk I did get round to writing down a few ideas and found myself approaching my experiences in a different way from before which was interesting.
The food highlight for today was having some custard for pudding as well as once again having spaghetti hoops on toast for lunch. I have done my best to work through 1kg of rice this week but won't quite make it which is a real shame but unsurprisingly I am on track to finish all the jam and toffees. And for all of you interested, black tea is becoming more attractive and I am getting quite attached to my porridge bowl accompanying my watching of BBC Breakfast in my morning routine.
I'm really glad I have undertaken this challenge as it has made me think a lot about food, hunger and also the whole concept of what and why I eat. I can't say I'm not looking forward to Saturday morning where I will probably be having some sort of greasy breakfast but I do know that the feelings, thoughts and emotions I have felt this week will impact me in a big way.
1 more day to go...
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