Serving at a soup kitchen

Is the idea of serving in a soup kitchen okay? Is it really serving?

From my experience (and I'm sure it holds out) there are often people who have amazing skills serving at a soup kitchen. So there is an accountant or homemaker (or insert other career here) spending there spare time making lots of soup and cutting bread and then serving it to people. People who I would assume are entirely capable of making their own soup and also serving it to themselves.

Essentially soup kitchens are something that we would not like to have. That's my assumption, but I think most people would agree. The people who rely on soup kitchens, I'm sure would like to be doing other things than queueing for soup. Even if it is just eating a meal with friends (as opposed to queueing for it).

The people doing the serving would also like this sort of end game - it would mean that they wouldn't have to help people from a place of compulsion, need or guilt, but a place of spontaneity and because it makes both people in the interaction more human.

Could the volunteers at soup kitchens rather try to change a system that seems to perpetuate the need for soup kitchens? Especially if they could use their skills and experience for that? Could we let people who rely on soup kitchens make their own soup? Teaching someone to fish and all that.

I've just come back from Amsterdam, where I had yet another opportunity to eat at the MKZ, a people's kitchen. The kitchen is squatted, therefore they don't pay rent, and the cooks are volunteers (but volunteers whose skill is cooking - they are really good). The price for a 3 course meal is EUR 5, but if you can't afford that, you don't have to pay. As far as I can tell, nobody enforces this, and you don't need to prove you can't pay. You can eat in a restaurant like setting and nobody really knows who is paying and who isn't. Nor do they care.

152 - my gamble

Another number people (at least those in my income bracket) should know. 152 is the amount of kilometers each person should be able to travel by air in order to live off one planet. In other words, if you are travelling more than 152km by plane each year, you are living unsustainably.

This explains some of the pressure I feel in my work. In my own way I believe I am working towards a more sustainable planet. My old polish landlord does not think so, and thinks I should be making money and providing jobs. That's for another day though. My job involves flying. A lot of flying. I travel by air on average once every two months (one trip, sometimes involving multiple flights). I would imagine I fly roulghly 70 000km a year. Wow, that figure scares me. Mainly because I think that's (one of) the baseline(s) for my work. I need to do "good", enough to compensate at least 69 848km worth of flying.

I campaign for ecological farming, and this is where things get tricky. It's hard to calculate the "good" I am doing in stopping the invasion of Africa by industrial agriculture. How much good does research do that shows ecological farming is a financialy better option for small-scale African farmers than chemical pesticides and fertilisers? That's a very hard calculation. I'd like to err on the side of caution though, and make sure this campaign does amazing things. I'd like African countries to be able to show the rest of the world how productive, profitable and good for the environment farming can be.

I feel like I'm gambling my own and the futures of some little people who are very close to me in this equation. Will I be able to take home bigger winnings for the planet than the debt I am putting it into with my air travel? That's something I think about often.

A nod from a cyclist

I've been braving the Joburg winter mornings lately on my cycle to work. It is just enough to get me warmed up, and I sometimes even break a sweat as I climb into Melville - not enough to warrant a shower though.

Commuting by bicycle comes with a couple downs - people in cars that aren't aware of cyclists, people who think you're crazy, limited carrying capacity and impatient drivers, but the ups far, far outweigh that. It connects you to the place you live like nothing else. Well, maybe walking might, but that's slow. It's exercise, it lets you acknowledge other people, it is so much fun (especially when cars are standing still), and makes you feel like a child again. And of course, as with many activities performed by a minority, it builds a secret camaraderie.

When cycling home yesterday, there was a cyclist cycling in the opposite direction, I was going fast downhill and he was out the saddle, climbing. As we very briefly noticed each other, I nodded my head and he dipped his helmet in return. Small gesture, a couple of seconds, but wow, made me feel like a million bucks.

There's a couple of things that sometimes make me think cycling is an effort, but a moment like that makes it completely worth it. Highly recommended.

Voluntourism

In some of my recent journeys around an amazing continent (Africa) I have come across many western voluntourists. Young people coming out to Africa, mostly from the EU or US to "help out". This is mostly with children (kids in the lingo) and usually involves teaching English, giving out laptops (often because, you know, I'd feel guilty buying that MacBook Air with that old computer still on my desk) and sports stuff, or just playing with the kids. 

Now before this develops into one of my (worryingly more often, and sounding ever more like my grandfather in a bad mood) rants, I'd like to say that I really admire these people for doing what they are doing, with what I can only imagine are the best of intentions. I did something similar(ish) when I was young, going to work on a kibbutz. However, I think the type of help these people and I are giving is misguided at best, no matter what the intentions are. The reason the children want people to play with them is because their parents are both working to try and keep food on the table, they would also like a MacBook Air, I'm pretty sure, and being taught English by a Swiss German woman who I could hardly understand can't be the fastest road to fluency. Especially when she leaves after a month (probably to go and see lions on her way out, because the local "safari park" down the road only has elephants, yawn). When they're giving someone something, perhaps they should try not to assume they are in the same position as their youngest nephew. Saying "well someone is enjoying their new tablet!" to a grown man probably makes the gift a little less empowering. 

I'd really like to see a world where people volunteered in an organisation that worked to end farm subsidies in Europe instead of coming on a holiday to a beautiful country and feeling better about it by dropping off some cheap sporting goods made in their home country. That way, farmers around the world could see demand for their produce pick up as cheap food imports disappear. It'd be great to see people with skills in the rich world offering free online training or mentoring to others to develop themselves, instead of accountants handing out cheap toys. 

If I'd had a chance to say similar things to my younger self about to set off for Israel and the world, I really hoped The younger me would have at least listened and thought about the way the world works, and how he could really help to bring about a fairer and more just society. 

And then I hope I could've hung around a bit longer to convince myself to get to know my own country better, the amazing scenery and the dark corners that nobody really wants to talk about, instead of trying to see something "bigger" and getting another fridge magnet that soon losses all meaning in a 2nd hand shop. But those are rants for future blogs!

A cyclist's rant

Again, to be clear, this is a rant.

What the hell gives people who drive around in cars all day the right to tell me how to ride safely? To be clear, I'm not talking about people who ask cyclists to signal with their arms more, I'm talking particularly about people who tell cyclists (read: me) not to cycle with earphones in. It makes me so mad. I'm pretty sure most of them play music in their cars when they drive around, but because cyclists are the vulnerable ones, they should be hyper alert all the time. 

This is SO wrong. It's the same attitude of drivers who shout at pedestrians crossing the road to get out of the way. I'm not sure, but I think the law even agrees with me here. The onus should be on the least vulnerable to look out for, and give way to, the most vulnerable. If you're guiding almost a tonne of metal around at 60km/h, you better be damned sure you're not letting it get anywhere near a cyclist or pedestrian. 

I refuse to ride like cars own the road. They don't, they share it, and I'm not going to take out my earphones or ride on the pavement because there are a couple of drivers who don't realise this. Anyway, do you have any idea how loud cars actually are? Amazingly, I can still hear them. Not that that helps much when they're probably texting and "driving". 

I know I know, stubborn and stupid way to have cyclists noticed and avoided. But you know what? So what. Cyclists are on the right side of history. We're on the moral high ground in nearly every respect. As long as I'm abiding by the rules of the road, I do expect cars to look out for me and other cyclists and to treat us as more vulnerable, and with more care than other road users.