Conversations 1: part poverty definition

my friend and bossman, Darin, shared some stuff on Saturday’s Simple Way Conversations day on the theme of stewarding your treasures [your money and things] well in the world we live in…

one really interesting thing he said which made me think was when he asked about the definition of poverty and said that often poverty has been defined as THE LACK OF STUFF? that’s true, right? i’m sure most of us would agree…

but then he turned it on it’s head – he looked at each of us in the room and said to us, what happened if after this meeting [bit of a parry-phrase happening here, don’t quota me by this] you got a couple of phone calls, telling you you had lost your job and there had been a fire at home which had burnt down the whole place including all your stuff and the bank called telling you that someone had gotten into your account and cleared out all your money and there is nothing you can do about it… and so within fifteen minutes of this meeting you had lost all your stuff..?

how long would it be before you had your next meal?

how long would it be before you found a place for you and your family to sleep for the night, or the next few weeks or months of nights?

how long before you found yourself a new job, whether back as a powerful executive in a company or serving coffee at the local Starbucks?

and the answer to each of those questions, and possibly some others, was not long at all…

so possibly the definition of POVERTY is not so much the LACK OF STUFF as it is the LACK OF FRIENDSHIP OR TOGETHERNESS

because that is how you would get your next meal, a place to stay, and your next job – through the people and network resources and connectivity you have…

certainly something to think about, especially when we try to solve POVERTY by simply GIVING PEOPLE STUFF… could it be there is another way?

to read some more about some difference between guilt and conviction, click here…

to celebrate a 40 million something goal is human, to forgive is divine…

i imagine this is a much bigger post or discussion than what will fit in here but let’s get it started…

a soccer player [who was worth something like 40 million something – does it really matter when you hit 40 million whether the next word is pounds, euros or dollars?] scores a goal.

a hundred facebook statuses [stati?] read something along the lines of ‘amazing goal – so worth the money spent’

i get angry. [i know, not allowed, how absolutely elizabethan of me]

i post something about how no football player [or goal] is ever worth that amount of money. especially when hundreds of thousands [millions? does it matter once you’ve gone past hundreds?] of people are literally starving to death around the world

angry mob [but since we’re online they can’t exactly storm my castle with flaming torches, especially because of the high-tech moat system i have employed]

so discussion happens. well kinda. words are written and people [a lot of them strong christian types] strongly defend the soccer player, the club, the industry, the system.

but there is a huge disconnect. because arguments will be made [with the understood eyebrow raising condescension implied as to ‘how can you even think such a thing you stupid, you.] and perhaps scripture, or scriptural ideas will be referenced and argumentative questions will be thrown [what are you saying? he should give the money back? how much of it? how much is too much?] all in defense of how much the person is worth his wages blah blah blah

what probably won’t happen is Jesus will not be quoted or referenced, because it is very hard to believe that Jesus would support the idea of a soccer player being worth millions of currency while people [specifically ‘least of these’ type people – Jesus’ favourite type it seems] are left to starve to death or barely survive in miserable circumstances and conditions.

and what also won’t happen is the people defending overpaid soccer [and you can interchange soccer for music or entertainment or business or even church leader/speaker type – the soccer one is just a more blatant example but it is the same across the board for me] player guy won’t ever make a statement that it is okay for the poor person to suffer, starve or die. the position they take leads to that natural conclusion but they won’t ever state “i am okay with the idea that for the soccer player to get 40 million something, hundreds of people will go hungry” because i don’t believe that is a defendable argument – so play the emotion, challenge the lack of viable solution, ask the argumentative question, quote some out-of-context biblical scriptural idea, but refuse to be drawn on the fact [in my opinion] that the system is horribly wrong and broken. and disgustingly so.

the “are you suggesting?” questions are difficult because i don’t know that i have a solution – i do feel that if the player got 20 somethings instead of 40 somethings then possible the people who watch the games would be able to pay half of what they pay and so there would be a lot more money around for them to be reaching out to some of their ‘least of these’ people… but finding a solution is not my initial intention, because i believe it has to start with the acknowledgement that there is a problem. [and yes the problem is the heart of man and so on, but the one we are faced with is a problem of economic disparity that can not be denied] once we acknowledge there is a problem, that the system is broken, that it is ludicrous and shameful and wrong that the soccer player/actor/singer/politician/pastor/writer gets 40 million of something while the majority of people have to live on under 2 of something a day, then hopefully we can start working together on solutions.

at the very least, let’s stop celebrating the wrongness.

the andersons Live Below The Line day 5

and coffee…

met some friends for coffee at the BP to celebrate the end of the week which has been interesting – quite a stressful time in terms of packing up the house and finishing off transcription work and trying to organise visas and a bunch of other stuff but i think that’s cool in a way – we don’t get to always choose when life happens to us – and while this live below the line week may have been largely insignificant in the bigger scheme of things i think that good came out of it for us – hopefully we have learnt to appreciate the little things and be more compassionate to people who have this situation thrust upon them as opposed to choosing it for themselves for a time period.

i guess today’s big lesson was that perseverance is easy when the end is in sight – if you know that 00:05 holds a cup of BP coffee for you then skipping the cup or so you would normally have during the day is no big deal at all and so today pretty much rushed by – yes it was quite a busy one on all fronts but we ate pretty well and finished big.

breakfast for me was two eggs on bread crusts [which i happen to dig] cos had to save the two slices for lunch [val didn’t have bread] and half an avo each so i stuck mine under the one fried egg – very yummy…

lunch was leftover noodle mix on snackwiches which was fairly decent…

supper was last two pork sausages well cooked as sausages [been chopped up rest of week] with rice and last of the beans/carrots and was really great – definitely ate enough food and the majority of it was not too bad [altho i think we killed lentils after just one meal – definitely pick rice or pap repeatedly over those]

so ja, with fasting or living below the line for a week it is made easier by the time frame – you choose when you want to do it and pick your structure/boundaries [just skip meals during day, just a daniel fast of fruit and veg only, absolutely nothing, how much money per day etc etc] and then do it for a time period and it’s over. for many people it’s not over.

i’m convinced that giving people a fish is not the answer – teaching them to fish or linking them up with the fisherman or taking down the company that is polluting the water that the fish should be freely available in are all bigger options… however, in the times and moments and busyness when those things are not immediately possible, sometimes giving a man [woman or child] a fish is better than not giving them a fish [especially when your waistline is probly over-fished]

i’m glad we did it, it wasn’t all fun, but it wasn’t all not fun and it certainly was not horrible and i hope we remember and learn and thing and treat and consider…

the andersons Live Below The Line day 4

day 4 of the live below the line saw a bit of a stodgy jungle oats breakfast [not enough water, oops] which was microwaved and very easy to make… bit of margarine type substance to give it some flavour…

lunch was leftover soup/stew val made the other day – very tasty and yum cos of all the good veg in it…

then supper was REALLY nice – roasted veg:sweet potato, carrots and leftover butternut and then two pork sausages sliced and fried to add for taste and it was really a winner meal, best all week i think

ate well today and pretty tasty stuff – getting a bit of a better hang of it – don’t know that i have any lessons that came out of it and if you haven’t yet i would go and read my friend lisa’s comments on the whole week’s experiment which i link to over here.

i guess actually the one thing that stood out today was the friend vibe – it’s been a theme this week that a bunch of people hear what we’re doing and are “cool, we’ll take you out to eat” which in the context of this week defeat’s the object a little bit, but the idea of community being so much more important if a bunch of individuals don’t have much because pooling a small amount for a larger amount of people always works better – i remember as a bachelor trying to cook meals for one and it gets quite expensive or wasteful, but when there are four of you say throwing your R12 into the pot, then if you did that for a whole week you could get really creative and everyone would have enough.

the second aspect was the idea of inviting people round to play a game and not being able to offer snacks, drinks etc – fortunately in tonite’s scenario the one guy brought food and so we weren’t going to make them not eat it for the sake of our challenge so the three of them partook [what a word] but the idea that if you are living in a poor context, inviting people around for a meal probably holds less ampedness because of what you can’t offer… you’d think that at least but in my experiences in Kayamandi and Umtata and Malawi and Botswana [when i went as a child] and the Spanish community i visited in the States when i was there it was always the opposite – those with nothing always offer so much – they always give of their best – they are always completely generous – i have experienced this so many times in so many ‘poor’ contexts that i know it to be true…

so ja, one day to go, hopefully we have learnt some stuff – definitely been made aware of a bunch of things and going to give the money we would normally have spent on food to someone who needs it a lot more than us which is great. i think it has been good. but what lisa wrote is true. it’s nothing compared to what can and should and needs to be done.

biting off less than we can chew

My friend Lisa, who plays TheatreSports with me and hates it when I don’t start sentences with capital letters or use respelled words like “thankx” and “thort” wrote a brilliant response to our live the line challenge which you should go and read by clicking here or here or going there:

http://relentlessabundance.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/biting-off-less-than-they-can-chew

the andersons Live Below The Line day 3

and we’re still alive, and muchly so…

i was in charge of supper duty and overestimated the amount of noodles we needed so we have a bunch of it left for tomorrow – green beans and a couple of carrots and two chopped up prok sausages [have 8 of those for the week visiting 4 different meals as our week’s meat, flip] and half an onion and half a packet of macaroni – and with only butter [well margarine, well actually something spread lite or something] as an additive it was difficult to give it taste but i did manage and it actually came out pretty good, my seconds [which was for some reason hotter than my firsts] tasted better cos it was hotter and val seemed to really enjoy it.

lunch was a sweet potato cut in half [one of the big mother ones] and microwave’d to the baked position and then butter [see above] and an avocado [the mielies we were going to have for lunch today were manky in the shops so val went for two avos instead – good call!] sliced and put inside it which was also very nice [given some spices and mayo i could really have turned that into a classic dish so may try that again sometime]

and then heading back to breakfast we had scrambled eggs on toast – three eggs, two toasts…

so substantial in terms of amount [especially with noodles left over and half of yesterdays ‘soup’stew as well and so the real question is did we learn anything today.

well i’m still battling a bit with my cough and throat so a pack of Halls or Strepsils would have been a nice additive – i know for val it’s coffee and so we’re already doing research on coffee places that will be open at 00:05 Friday night/Saturday morning ha ha – and yeah the drinks thing is a big one cos there is cold water and boiled water [which as i think i mentioned i used to drink a lot so i’m fine with that] and not much else – so all the extras really – chocolates [altho we don’t do a lot of that surprisingly enough], sweets [val loves sour sweets] popcorn [val LOVES popcorn] and so on… to go with the spices and cooking extras [mayo, chutney, tomato sauce etc etc]

so ja, kinda looked at that yesterday already so no huge revelation except the drinks and i guess the one thing that stands out in terms of the menu is the choosing – knowing what i know now i think i would have made some different decisions in terms of choice of food. val did a really amazing job figuring it all out but now that we’ve trodden that path i think we’d both ‘sacrifice’ lentils for something else [salt or sugar or a sachet of coffee maybe] and so the big realisation today is that when you don’t have much money, you don’t have much choice – we choose between the brands of coffee and cereal we want whereas a bunch of people have to choose not to have coffee or cereal or to find a staple cereal which will last the week or month [unsweetened etc etc]

so ja, it’s not fun, but it’s good, and it’s totally okay, it’s like we’re dying or suffering hugely or anything – have to remember that we chose to do this this week whereas many don’t get to make that choice

the andersons Live Below The Line day 2

so today was a breakfast of 50g Jungle Oats each [slept over at my folks house and they had 50g sachets so less than the 150g between us we were meant to, but was enough] for breakfast [little bit of butter, no sugar, sigh]

then for lunch we feasted on a “soup” the beautiful val made altho it was more a stew than a soup with lentils, potato and butternut in and we had that with rice – could see if lentils was all i had to feast on every day then i might get tired fairly quickly altho they did kinda dominate the meal – but we were quite hungry by lunchtime and the meal we had was really amazing. and more than enough.

supper is happening in the backgound now and consists of a pork sausage each and a bean and carrot mix and some rice and should be equally yummy.

i ended last nite quite sick [have had throat for a while and some flu’ness threatening] and i guess today’s understanding of the poor is in line with that – i had friends on facebook suggesting all sorts of remedies and felt like it was kind of a cheat to go for them, but i did compromise and have a med lemon [just to try and combat the throat because we have a bunch of unpaid – but that’s another blog – work to do this week and i don’t want to get completely sick] but the realisation is that good health is another pretty much large choice/privilege/score of the rich.

if i have R12 per day and i have to choose between food and medication i would imagine food would win every day, also because i think medication of any type starts at a base level of around R12 and then jumps to R85 pretty quickly… you’re rich and you get the smallest hint of a sickness, you go to the doctor and pay a crapload for an antibiotic, or you duck into the chemist and grab a bottle of pills or into pick n pay like we normally would and overdose on orange juice to kill it before its set… a bottle of OJ going for R16 or R19 or above…

also if you are poor it is probably a lot easier to get sick [cos of living, eating and other conditions] and a lot harder to get better [lack of money for doctor visit, medication, vitamins etc]

and again the realisation that we are doing food and drink whereas if we were living on an average of R12 a day that that money would have had to have somehow covered rent and electricity and appliances, clothes, transportation, petrol, cellphones, calls, internet etc etc in terms of how we spent our day.