Breakfast: flatbreads and hummus
I’ve just reached half way through the seven days of my Ration Challenge, living on the same rations as a Syrian refugee in a camp in Jordan, and fund raising for refugees via Concern Worldwide UK.
Previous posts: Taking the Ration Challenge and First Day of the Ration Challenge
Appreciate this may raise more of a smile if you’re wading through the rice yourself, but thought it might give a bit of insight into this initiative!
Yes, this was my snack on Day 3
You know you’re doing the Ration Challenge when you:
– View a bowl of boiled rice as an entire meal. Repeatedly.
– Run out of Tupperware to store all the odds and ends and half portions
– Fear congee is an acquired taste, and not one you want to acquire
– Take so long taking photographs that every meal you eat is cold
– Realise everything tastes better with salt. Ditto fried.
– Get so fed up with rice you’re reduced to grinding it into flour or trying to make milk
– Cry if you throw away a teabag that you’ve only used twice
– Burn food and eat it anyway
– Spend hours weighing up which single vegetable to choose for a week.
– Panic when you absentmindedly pick up someone else’s leftovers
– Look longingly at the fridge full of food for everyone else.
– Feel resentful of the fruit bowl
– Get muted by your friends for repeatedly posting photos of rice-based meals
– Get to meal times and gnaw your own arm off waiting for chickpeas to soak / lentils to simmer because you forgot to do it earlier
– Discover that sardines you were dreading taste like ambrosia, just because they taste of anything at all
– Develop a deep hatred of your single spice
– Swear to make flatbreads in future. They’re a revelation!
– Discover a family member has eaten one of your beloved flatbreads, and revisit your views on the death penalty
– Seize on new ideas with great enthusiasm: chilli oil! Lentil fritters! Sardine flatbread pasties!
– Check your emails a gazillion times a day, hoping to see the magic words “You’ve just received a donation”
– Realise how incredibly lucky you are and how much you normally take for granted, every single day.
– Get sponsored by the people you’d least expect, and it makes it all worthwhile
Why take the Ration Challenge?
I only have four days left of the Ration Challenge, and I’m unbelievably lucky that I can return to my normal life afterwards. Watching this video, I was shocked to realise just how long this can be the daily reality for many refugees. For some refugee children, it’s all they have ever known.
2020 UPDATE
Conditions in the refugee camps are even worse during coronavirus, so I’m doing the Ration Challenge again from 13 to 19 September.
If you might consider sponsoring me, here’s my fundraising page for Concern Worldwide UK. Anything you can spare helps to provide food, education and medicine for refugees, plus Concern’s wider work combatting hunger and poverty: https://my.rationchallenge.org.uk/faith-archer
Check out my other posts about the Ration Challenge 2019:
First day of the Ration Challenge
I love rice, but this Challenge is pushing me to my rice limits. Thank goodness for the Dhal I made with my red lentils, cumin and a tiny onion, a tablespoon of it in every bowl of rice is making all the difference.
Not long to go now … for us that is. The video clip brings home the truth for so many people sadly