Ubuntu Part 2

My visit with Reverend Bhengu on Day 4

I didn't have the energy for this post yesterday afternoon, but it is definitely an inspiring story worth sharing. My job takes me to all kinds of interesting places and I meet new and inspiring people every day. The Live below the line challenge is a great icebreaker, especially when you are a guest being offered food at a stranger's home. I'll admit it now: I cheated yesterday. I accepted a single bran muffin at the Pastor's house, where I was invited to discuss my project in the community of Caluza (the C is actually pronounced with a "click" as if one were calling a kitten toward them).

The Pastor asked why I wouldn't take more than one, and I told him about the challenge. It began a long conversation about my research project, my reasons for working in South Africa, poverty and wealth, and how it was I came to Caluza at all. We spoke for hours, far beyond the schpeal I typically give when inviting a community member to sit on one of the advisory boards relating to my work.

We spoke about the concept of community based research and the value of spending time to get to know a community before beginning research in the area. Reverand Bhengu told me I was a special person to consider how to incorporate this into my work and to get to the level of comfort I had achieved in the community. I explained to him that Sthe and others had welcomed me into various communities, and that this sense of community spirit (or Ubuntu) is something that I feel is sometimes lacking back home. As we become more obsessed with collecting things (ever-larger houses, cars, clothes, etc), we start to feel that we have earned these things, despite the fact that we were fortunate enough to be born into circumstances that allowed us to achieve them. I am certainly no exception from this way of thinking. It is the same reason that many of us will get a raise and not save or put away our new earnings, but rather begin to purchase nicer things, shop at finer stores, and opt for upper crust supermarkets over Safeway or Shoprite. The problem with this thinking is we begin to feel that these "things" or "status" we achieve belongs to us (ours and ours alone) instead of to the community from where it came. It's the same reason that those who make the most try to avoid paying higher taxes, even though it is a reasonable thing to do considering the amount they make. Rather than adding this money to the public purse to utilise towards safer neighbourhoods and social assistance for those at a disadvantage, some people prefer to purchase their own means of security (for example fancy alarm systems or security guards).

I know that living in South Africa brings along with it safety issues, but the most dangerous of places in the world are also those with the most disparity of wealth (including the USA). But I digress. In many of the poorer communities in South Africa there are no high walls, no security systems, no guards. In fact the Zulu have a pejorative term for the high protective walls surrounding homes in many of the wealthier suburbs of South African cities, a term that literally translates to "stop nonsense," meaning mind your own business. Instead people in Zulu communities rely on their neighbours to look out for them. If you see one another, visit one another, and care for one another, than you also look out for each other.

Now let me get back to the Pastor. As I explained to him the live below the line challenge and how I have been very welcomed into the communities where I work, he spoke of the precious community spirit of the Zulu people. "No one ever goes hungry," he explained. Even the poorest of the poor can rock up to their neighbours house and instantly be invited in for tea and whatever else there is to offer. Whenever a ceremony takes place, be it a wedding, a funeral, or special occasion, a cow or a goat (or many) will be slaughtered, and the whole community will attend the feast (no invite necessary). It may be that someone goes a day or two without a proper meal, but they will always eat well when a ceremony takes place.

The beauty beneath this way of life is striking to me. While there are gentle and generous people everywhere, it is not uncommon to hear of people suffering in silence, behind "stop nonsense" walls or on the streets of Vancouver. We may not know they are there or we may prefer to avert our eyes instead of contemplating the complex reasons that got them there. In Zulu culture poverty is real and prevalent. But the culture is rich and the sense of Ubuntu ensures that few will go to bed feeling like I do on night 5 for too long.

Thank you Reverend Bhengu for sharing your stories with me. And thank all of you that have followed my journey. Tomorrow I return to the land of readily available food, but I will not forget the riches I have encountered below the line.

Last Few Hours

Ladies and Gents... 3 more hours to go and I've officially lived below the line. Thank you to all of you for your support! This day was the hardest of all. I'll be honest, I slept til 11am today because I had such trouble getting out of bed. I went to a one-hour boot camp session last night and yawned through the first half, but felt less cranky after. Nevertheless I paid for it in the morning. I didn't have the calorie intake to support the workout. All day long I meandered about in a state of confusion. These last few days I suddenly remembered clearly last year's experience of going to bed early nights 3 through 5 out of pure exhaustion and to help stop the obsessing over food.

The highlight of the day today was going to pick up Miriam (a young woman in foster care in a quiet town near Pietermaritzburg whom I met through Canadian friend, Nicole Nel), and her Canadian foster parents invited me in for pizza dinner. I was hesitant to say no because I haven't had much of an opportunity to get to know the family since they moved to South Africa in February. I said yes, with the stipulation that I could bring my own dinner (an interesting concoction of the normal spinach and cabbage mush accompanied by oatmeal this time because I could not put another bite of maize meal in my mouth). They happily agreed and we had a lovely night together. One of their sons, Levi, saw me eating my dessert (a boiled egg) and asked his mom if she could make him one too. On this, the last night of the challenge, and my hungriest, I was unwilling to share.

Their daughter Bethany offered me some lovely looking bread that Miriam and her had baked together. Luckily for me I could pack it up to take home for my hardy breakfast planned for tomorrow: Bacon-stuffed boer vors (sausage) with a pile of fruit! Interestingly it is not the chocolates and crips that I was missing on night one that I now crave, but the fresh fruits and vegetables that I can't afford to add to my diet. That and a bit of olive oil on just about anything. Lucky me that I have the ability to end this diet. For many others it will continue on indefinitely...

Variety is the Spice of Life!

A big plate of maize meal all cooked up (aka pap, sadza, or ugali)

 Well, well. It's day 4 and I'm still living off of my maize and

Last year's 90 cent lunch that left me hungry all night:
1/8 can of tuna ($0.23), 1/4 of an avo ($0.25),
25g of stoned wheat thins -- ie 3 crackers ($0.25),
29g plain greek yogurt ($0.17)

oatmeal-based diet. I'm definitely feeling the malaise and inability to concentrate that I felt last year around Day 4.  What's different from last year is the food I'm eating. In 2013 I guess I took the easy way out by simply dividing the costs of foods I felt like eating. I ate a lot less, but at least I had some variety; a reminder of just how lucky I am to have grown up in a middle class family and a multi-cultural city. These last few days I have had plain oatmeal with half a banana for breakfast and plain oatmeal later in the day if I needed a snack. Lunches and dinners have been primarily maize meal (pap), with cooked spinach, cabbage, and onion with or without egg and tomato. I now understand why so many people survive off of pap as a staple. It's cheap and it fills you up, but it's over-processed and under-nourishing.

This year: spinach and cabbage... thrilling!

Dinner Day 1... and lunch Day 2 and 3.

Now at day 4 I am experimenting. Lunch today was oatmeal. I considered putting a fried egg on top for some kinda new invention... but that would mean no egg at dinner. So half a banana it was. I'm going to kick myself for that tomorrow. Tonight for dinner I left out the cabbage and had onion, tomato, and spinach with my pap. I've considered making phuthu with my maize meal to have a nice new texture, but I'm afraid I'll screw it up and then I won't have anything to eat. I completed my new dinner with a one-egg omelette with onion... ahhh the difference, I imagined. But I also imagined the omelette with salt and margarine, and the tomatoes and spinach with garlic and cooking oil. Life without condiments is pretty damn boring. On the plus side, my snack tonight is raw cabbage. Hooray??

Dinner Day 2: The introduction of tomato!!

Getting adventurous with an omelette on Day 4

 Donate here to Results Canada, an anti-poverty advocacy group

The Comfort of Friends

Click here to donate in support of my challenge

Today was easier than other days due to the beauty of friendship. Today as I packed my lunch for the road trip to Embo with the project research assistant, I decided to pack a large container full of pap and cabbage/spinach to share with Sthe. Sthe is like a mother, a sister, a friend, and a colleague to me. Since I had the pleasure of being introduced to her, she has been an inspirational woman and my light on days when my life in this strange land seemed shrouded in darkness. When I met Sthe she was unemployed and living below the line. Nevertheless, she invited me to her home and made me feel very welcome, offering whatever she could for my comfort. In the months that followed I could barely afford to keep myself afloat, as I had no consistent funding or scholarships and just getting back and forth to South Africa was a mission as a student, so Sthe worked with me for next to nothing on the hope that my funding applications would succeed. During that time, she invited me into her home, would have me stay over, and her family cooked me many local meals without expecting anything in return.

Sthe hosts dinner for my supervisor's visit in 2013

Today Sthe is employed part time with my project and also funded for her amazing community work through the Stephen Lewis Foundation (the latter she accomplished all on her own). And today I was able to repay all of her kindness and faith in the project by sharing the food that I had for the day. I did not feel hungry, I felt Ubuntu, the Zulu philosophy of community above self.

A lovely display of spinach, cheesy pap
with vegetables, and Boer Wors sausage at Sthe's

I am also very humbled by the fact that I now have two friends who are taking the challenge with me. My friend Ish in Calgary has updated me on his first few days, and I have never felt closer to him despite the distance. He wrote of Day 2, "I've never spent so much time thinking about food in one day." There is no better way to sum up my thoughts from Day 2. As one of the lucky folk, my brain had to face a harsh reality when moving from the normal thought process of what do I feel like eating tonight? to one of can I eat tonight? Every minute I am faced with the task of ignoring or distracting myself from the hunger or simply finding a thrill in the little victories. All day long yesterday I thought about the excitement of adding a tomato to my dinner.

Today my friend Leah also signed up for the challenge. I immediately felt a warmth in my heart that trumped the hunger in my belly. I hope she also feels a new kinship with me as she goes through the challenge on Vancouver Island. This challenge has really sent me through emotions and realisations that I can't get from reading about it, but only by living through it. Small gifts that we tend to take for granted in the pace of day-to-day life. I hope others of you will consider taking the challenge at some point, even just for yourself. It really is eye-opening. Good luck Leah. Community above self.

Life and food

 click here to support results canada, the beneficiary of my challenge.

It's only Day 2, and already my daily routine has been quite literally shaken up by the challenge. As a student in the research phase of my PhD, my work days are largely self-regulated and involve a great deal of work on the computer. Since wifi is not the most reliable in South Africa (the outdoor cable set up by my provider has now been stolen twice in the past year), I often head to a cafe at some point in the day to work. These outings provide a nice break up to my day to help keep me motivated. So what does one do when one can order neither food nor drink?

One stays home to work and thinks often about food.

It also hinders my ability to be out with friends. We would normally meet for a coffee or drink, or one of us might host dinner. These activities too must stop. A good friend in Calgary who has decided to take the challenge silently in order to experience it with me noted in a message this morning that he has had to turn down an invite to an Indian-food gathering on Friday. Welcome my dear friend to the loneliness of rationing.

Today I had an excuse to be out. I had an appointment to service my car, which I use to travel out to near and remote communities for my research a few times a week. While I enjoyed the escape to a new venue at which to work, I was taunted by the "free" coffee provided at the side table. I had to remind myself that if I was truly living under the line, I would not be able to afford the R1,500 cost to service my vehicle, and would therefore not be in an establishment with seemingly free coffee.

Alas, the tea from the day-old teabag that accompanied this morning's oatmeal and half-banana breakfast will have to suffice for the day.

Over and out.

Thank goodness for potable water

Lunch on Day 1

Click here to donate.

I woke up early on Day 1 to go for a run with some friends from boot camp. My normal routine before a morning run is to have a cup of coffee and a slice of toast with peanut butter so I have energy for the run. Not this morning. Instead I left the house with nothing but my bottle of water (thank goodness tap water in South Africa is potable). Even though the run was short (~4km), I had trouble sustaining a good pace without my usual energy intake. First lesson below the line. 

When I came home I chugged more water and had a cup of tea (no sugar no milk, saving the bag for tomorrow) and a half a banana for breakfast. Instead of buying a R6 can of beans for my protein this week, I opted for 5 eggs (luckily organic and free range from my landlords), and had enough left over for a few tea bags to get that caffeine fix each day.

One thing I am grateful for this year is that none of my parishables that I was unable to finish before the challenge will go to waste. I was able to deliver a parcel of last night's leftovers along with some veg and some sausages to the neighbour's landscaper and his family. They live below the line every day, and today the small boys will enjoy some cinnamon buns from my pantry!

Preparing for the Challenge

Please support this year's challenge by donating here.

This year I'm taking a different approach than last year. I went to the shops with my entire week's budget to get the only foods I will consume over the next 5 days. I've decided that $1.75/day will go quite a bit further on a South African budget, so to keep myself on par with last year's challenge, I've decided to keep my budget to R10 (~C$1) per day. That's R50 for a week's worth of groceries. It's all there in the picture, save for one can of beans, which I will buy when I go to the shop that sells them for cheaper (otherwise, my only protein for the week would be in that 250ml of milk).

Putting down the sachet of Ricoffy coffee was definitely the most painful. A mere R6,75 for a week's worth of instant coffee meant that I would have to put back much needed vegetables or the whole packet of maize meal. I'm hoping one of my Imbali friends will be willing to trade a few sachets of tea for 1/4 bag of maize meal. The things we do for caffeine!

The Live Below the Line Challenge

Tomorrow, while you're enjoying turkey leftovers, I begin the Live Below the Line challenge in support of RESULTS Canada, an anti-poverty advocacy group with whom I volunteered for several years. Please support me on my 5-day journey by making a small donation to help me meet my fundraising goal at this link.

The challenge is simple: eat and drink for no more than the global poverty line C $1.75/day for five days. It's a challenge that allows me, and those who read my blog, to get a glimpse of what it really means to live below the line. Although those who actually live below the line must also factor in transport, accommodation, school fees, healthcare, clothes, extended family support, and every other comfort the top 20% of us take for granted, the challenge is designed to introduce us to but a few of the choices people face everyday.

This is my second year taking the challenge for RESULTS, so this year I have decided to blog about it so my friends and family members can better experience the daily deliberations and discomforts I experience during the challenge. It's not too late to join me on my journey, and there are several poverty-related charities that you can choose as a beneficiary. If you are considering the challenge, please visit the live below the line webpage.