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Fasting for Ramadan: Hunger in 2022

21/4/2022

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Photo by Victoria Shes on Unsplash
I'm not going to eat all day today.

It's Ramadan and I'm joining my Muslim friends who have been fasting during daylight hours since the beginning of the month. I've fasted a couple of days each Ramadan for the past couple of years. I wrote about it here last year.

My motivation is a bit different this year though. The first year was definitely in solidarity with my housemates. The three guys I was living with went to a lot of trouble making delicious Iftar meals for us all. The pleasure of breaking fast together in the evening was all the more joyful because it was a shared experience. 

Besides from convivial solidarity, my motivations have expanded this year.

Literally billions of people around the world go hungry every day.

By not eating today, I will experience the hunger that many, many people experience due to poverty. Through no choice of their own, half the global population are designated "in poverty". Which surely demonstrates how broken our global community is. The excesses of the West are known to impact the global south through climate change which, as individuals, we have little power to change.

This article from Noema Magazine highlights how "
the richest 10% of people are responsible for 52% of cumulative global emissions — and the 1% for a full 15%."

These statics aren't really that shocking anymore, there's been so much publicity about climate change and what should be done. It's easy to feel worn down - like there's little point in stressing about the short journey I just drove when rich people fly around the world on private jets.
“Today, talking about food means talking about a system in crisis,”
Food is really important. It's hard to concentrate on work or studying if your stomach is growling in hunger, and it's hard to do the manual labour needed to plant crops when you don't have enough calories to fuel the work.

This article in Where the Leaves Fall accepts the importance of children being well fed so that they can concentrate and learn effectively. The article isn't all just doom and gloom, but has some good news stories of the successes of projects around the world in providing free school meals. Hurray! The wider impact on the community when children can thrive in a variety of ways is huge. Finland is a prime example, Tanja Grén credits the availability of free school meals with "turning Finland from a poor, war-torn state into a prosperous, welfare nation."

Later on today, when my tummy is rumbling and my mind wanders to what delicious meal I'll be able to savour tonight, I'll think too about those without enough to eat. Of course I'll think of my friends in Bosnia, trapped by the EU's borders. I'll think of my Muslim friends fasting and praying, and I'll think of the millions of hungry children, eager for a better future, whose lives are impacted by the greed of the West.

I usually try to finish a blog post with a call to action, but I'm struggling to suggest a cause to support or charity to donate to in this instance. The issues are too broad. I can only think to suggest that we must all be outward looking, be kind to those around us and consider ways to tackle bigger issues in ways that our own mental health can manage.

​As always, comments and suggestions welcome. Do you fast? What small steps can we take to change the inequalities about food availability?
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Always Be Kind: Losing my Religion

23/11/2020

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Kindness is such a simple concept, which is taught by all religions. In 2017 I was looking for some religious answers, so I went to India to ‘find myself’. I thought perhaps Buddhism would provide more meaningful responses where Christianity had failed to answer. I ended up with more questions than answers at first, here’s how it happened.

Working in the church, you’d think you’d meet honest, helpful and kind people. “Love thy neighbour” and all that. Of course not everyone is the same and many people were nice, but I was often confronted by selfishness and stubbornness when it came to communicating with my church colleagues. By the time I’d been in India for a while, of course I had met a whole host of people. Some of them were lovely, some of them were not. The ones who were not so lovely chipped away at my idea that Buddhism would be the answer to my restless soul. The final hope slipped away whilst I was on a tuktuk near Pushkar in Rajasthan. Pushkar is a sacred place for Hindus, so no meat or eggs are allowed here. Paradise for me as a vegan! Yet on my tuktuk ride to visit Aloo Babba (a holy man famous locally for fasting a lot and eating only potatoes) we passed a giant chicken farm. Long metal sheds just like those found in Norfolk, with feed towers and a dreadful smell. How could a sacred place be so close to an awful factory? Why did anyone living here think that this was ok? Money I suppose, supply and demand. That’s when I realised that hypocrites are everywhere, not just in the church.

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I went through an atheist phase, if there is a God, I thought, why is there poverty like I’d seen all over India and Nepal. However, there were a series of other things that led me to where I am now: after a particularly intense yoga class, meditating on a bus, meeting someone special. (You’re going to have to ask me about these occasions in person!)

Now, I kind of think of myself as multireligious. I’m pretty sure there is a God/creative force, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter whether you worship Him/it in a church or temple, but I know for certain that it is good and right to be kind. I think there is much to be learnt from spiritual figures of the past, but mostly I try and apply kindness to everything in my life - from picking up litter as a kindness to others who will come that way, to going to volunteer in the Balkans.
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I’m not the only one who has come to this conclusion. Have you heard of “The Kindness Guy”? Leon Logothetis made a TV show called “The Kindness Diaries” where he travels the world reliant only on the kindness of others. He shares the homes and meals of people around the world, sometimes surprising their generosity with kind acts in return. The people he meets and the experiences he has are really life-affirming (albeit with a TV camera hanging around). You can watch it on Netflix.
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
Christianity


“Kindness should become the natural way of life,not the exception.”
Buddhism


 “Kindness is a pearl of the heart; without it, the heart is just an empty shell.”
Islam


"Practice truth, contentment and kindness; this is the most excellent way of life.”
Sikhism



Kindness includes small, everyday things, doing the washing up or buying someone a coffee, without being motivated by an expectation of repayment. Or big things like taking responsibility for someone who needs help. It also includes kindness to oneself, you cannot pour from an empty cup. I forget and relearn these things all the time, I neglect my own well-being and I am sometimes shy and lazy and don’t follow through with things I say I will do. But I remember again and try harder. Kindness and openness have led to many different and extraordinary experiences which I could never have imagined, let alone planned. Situations and encounters which are not just unique to lucky or brave people, but to anyone who wants to be kind and open towards others. I know I can always do more and I will keep trying my hardest to be kind.
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If you want a way of being kind, you can make a donation to help refugees here.
Have you had an occasion where being kind has led to something amazing? Comment below!
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WOMAD and oxfam: festival volunteer fun

7/8/2019

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Want to have an amazing, music filled summer but you’re on a budget? Love meeting new people? Want to support a great charity? Then you need to volunteer for Oxfam. 

Me and Rebekah were volunteers at Womad festival, held at Charlton Park in Wiltshire. This world music festival has a super-chilled vibe with so much to do and see for people of all ages, it was a great first volunteering experience for us. We worked as stewards, we did three 8 hour shifts in exchange for free entrance to the festival, exclusive campsite and meal vouchers.
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Our first shift involved patrolling the campsite as festival-goers arrived and pitched their tents. Duties involved smiling, saying hi, checking for open fires, keeping fire lanes clear and trying to find out where the bin liners were. On the hottest day of the year, we clocked up 21kms of walking! Everyone was excited and really appreciated help.

Our second shift was thankfully more stationary. Monitoring the gate to backstage camping involved checking wristbands and opening and closing the gate to authorised vehicles. We had the best spot though - really near one of the stages so we could dance the shift away! 

We signed up for a post-festival shift meaning we had two whole days off to enjoy the festival. Meditation session and talk with Gelong Thubten, yoga, tai-chi, poetry, panel discussion, dance workshops and so much music! There’s nothing like being at the front of a crowd watching a performer as captivating as Anna Calvi - Saturday night’s headliner. The food stalls were great too. Indian dosas and vegan churros were the highlights but the wood fired pizza place, and their vegan cheese, was amazing too. 

It was impossible to see everything and sometimes it was necessary just to chill at the campsite. The Oxfield had a marquee with boiling water and tea and coffee as well as phone charging. It was nice to sit around chatting with other volunteers. Some veterans of Oxfam have volunteered year after year and had some amazing tales to tell. *Oxfield’s showers were hot, clean and not often busy* 
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Our final shift involved covering other people’s breaks on various gates, giving directions and then gently suggesting to the last campers that they might like to go home. 

Rebekah writes:

“Volunteering is such a good experience. My experiences as a festival volunteer this summer have been really positive. It was a great way to meet new people. You can get into some great discussions about the world, different cultures and ways of thinking. In our role as volunteer stewards we were able to take on the day to day running of parts of the festival and use our people-skills throughout. It was all about helping the festival goers have the best time they could! It was great to be on the other side of a festival and experience it in this way. WOMAD festival was fun, different, exhausting, magical and something I will never forget! I will definitely be trying out a new festival next year.”

I was a bit concerned that the other volunteers would mostly be younger than us, people would come in groups or I wouldn't know what to do. Oxfam provide training, stewarding is mostly common sense and there was an amazing age-range! Some people came alone and others met up with volunteer friends from other festivals - I needn't have worried.
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Oxfam raises £1 million over the course of the summer through providing stewards for festivals, enabling them to fund their work around the world. If you want to find out more visit their website here 
or get in touch by posting a comment below.  Summer's not over yet!
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The path to Mundesley beach: walking and reflecting

9/11/2018

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When I was small I walked this path, my Dad’s strong, rough hand in mine, a sandcastle bucket clutched in my tiny fingers.

When I was young I walked this path, raincoat and wellies, grey stormy waves soaking us at high tide.


When I grew up I walked this path, a dog lead in each hand and a bright pink kite under one arm.


Recently I walked this path, a tiny hand in mine this time, with sandy spades and buckets.


Yesterday I walked this path, on my own. Wind in my hair, pebbles in my pocket, salt on my face.


Time marches onwards. Lives grow, flourish and fade. The sea is always there, always different, at the end of the way.

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My grandma’s lived in the same house for as long as I can remember, and going to the beach is one of my favourite things. It’s incredible how I don’t really feel any different to that small girl with the bucket, but also incredible that so much has changed. The beach, the path, the sea are always there. I think there’s a profound lesson in there somewhere.
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    Hannah the traveller

    is a travel and lifestyle blog with focus on running, vegan eating and of course global travel.

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