My Kerosene Lantern

It’s day four and I’m still kickin’. I felt a bit of fatigue this morning, but I ate some food and that sorted itself out. I haven’t been loosing focus or anything, but I have found that, despite my daily cleanings, I am starting to develop a very strange odor. It’s not quite B.O., however its strange enough that I hope it does start noticeably  radiating out from my body.

It’s supposed to rain tonight, so I’m trying to figure out how I can sleep outside and still keep my stuff dry. If the rain proceeds to POUR then I’l be up that famous creek without a paddle. 

I made instant pancakes today (just add water) but it didn’t work out too well on acount of I lacked a real skillet or PAM to spray before I cooked. It was a bad idea I guess.

There’s really not much to say at this point. I haven’t had any new insights or life-changing discoveries since I last wrote so I guess this meager sum of words will have to suffice.

TTFN,
Trenary

Day three is here and I’m still cooking with gas. So to speak. I’m not feeling too terribly tired. I even slept rather well last night in my little blue shelter. It seemed that Humphrey and Audrey didn’t sleep too well, so I definitely feel for them. I was certainly warm enough and had very little trouble falling asleep. I woke up at the crack of dawn and found I had enough time to scrub myself up a little bit (a slightly difficult task in a sleeping bag) and get a cup of coffee. Someone had given me a coupon the day before. 

Walking to McDonalds was easy enough. But to my surprise  there were free samples of some mocha drink awaiting me on the counter. I took one and left, drawing strange looks from the girl working there. I guess people stare when you only show up for handouts. It makes me wonder if I do the same when I’m not poor.

Insecurity is another aspect of the 2-dollar life that I am beginning to feel, if only a little bit. Ben Folds came to campus last night, which meant that many people were out and about. After going to bed at ten-ish, I awoke some indeterminable time later only to hazily hear, “…that guy in the black bag…” I could hear the footsteps of two people nearby.

My first thought was: Are they going to mess with me?

I felt kind vulnerable. After a few seconds I realized I was being paranoid and I drifted back to sleep. But I’m sitting in the little bubble that is Mary Washington, not on the streets somewhere. We have police specifically for this campus. If I can feel insecure on a police protected campus as I sleep in plain view, I can only imagine the feelings of vulnerabilty that come with sleeping in the street or in a bonafide shanty town.

Other than that no problems. I even have roughly 2 dollars spending money remaining. 2.13 to be exact. But what do I do with that? I feel that I could make the rest of the week on Ramen and Peanut Butter. But why should I. The responsible thing to do would be to save it and invest in the long term. 

Only catch is… there is no long term here.

I can get beer or a cheep cigar or a bag of squirtguns from the dollar store. But I’ll probably buy food with it just because man (or woman) cannot live on Ramen alone. I’m thinking about canned goods. Need them vegetables. 

I guess that’s all fer now.

Catch you on the flip side,
Trenary.

I’m finding that the challenge is pretty cake so far. I’m waiting for it to become taxing. I live off of ramen and peanut butter, like most of my compatriots. I haven’t been totally hungry yet and I feel like I will have plenty of food for the week. I did splurge a little today, but it was for good reason.

I needed matches

But I didn’t want to just walts into Snellings and ask for matches. I felt it would be rude. I guess it’s kind of lame to keep up pretenses when you are poor, but they know me at Snellings so…

I guess the lesson here is: Pride is universal.

The reason i needed the matches: To cut a rope. Specifically to cut the rope into several parts. I built a tarp shelter today and I needed rope to stake it out. Alas, I could only find one long rope, so I used matches to burn through the rope in order to create the segment lengths that I needed. The tarp turned out fine…so far. We’ll see how its doing when I get back to shanty town. 

Lastly, I am coming to terms with the water boiling rule. Last night it was a pain in the ass. I hadn’t prepared enough before hand and was really thirsty at bedtime. Today I made a big effort to boil lots of water and save it for later. Thank God I don’t have a lot of work this week. Otherwise the waterboiling would really get on my nerves.

I think the boiling itself proves a good point, but you’re hosed if you don’t prepare properly. Overall, day 1 is a sucess. 

And I’m still waiting for this challenge to get hard.

Trenary out.

I don’t anticipate any problems with the challenge this week. I typically live off of bad beer and ramen. Now I just can’t drink the bad beer. So much the better for me.

Kidding aside…

I understand the goal of the challenge and on paper it sounds really good. Raise money and awareness for developmental projects that our school is pursuing in underdeveloped countries. Do so by trying to understand for oneself how people in underdeveloped countries live and share that experience with others. It is the action of taking the challenge off of the paper and re-framing it in the world we live in that makes me scratch my head just a bit.

The coordinators are quite aware of the inaqdequacies of this exercise. They’ve posted their own doubts and the doubts of others about various aspects of this challenge. I guess this is where I catch up and post mine (so far) as well.

1. I doubt at any point I will actually be living on two dollars a day. It’s just impossible to totally remove oneself from American society and the positive externalities we experience from living here. That’s not to say we won’t try. Simply, it would be rediculous for anyone to undergo this challenge and think this challenge is an accurate portrayal.

2. I wonder what people from underdeveloped countries would say if they saw us doing this. Would they laugh, get angry, nod their head in assent or have some other reaction all together.

Despite these doubts (I probably will find more the hungrier/more tired I get,) I still think this exercise will be useful and rewarding. It should bring in some money that will benefit someone, somewhere. Money aside, the challenge will likely remind us of what it is to be rich, so to speak. Camping outside on Ball sure can’t teach us what it’s like to live in a Slum in Khartoum or in a rural Bangladeshi village, however; the whole process can easily remind us of the unecessary frills we enjoy day to day. It can make us appreciative.

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Also pertaining to the challenge:
My purchases were as follows…

24 Packets of ramen (Chicken Flavor)

1 Jar of peanut butter

1 Bottle of water

1 Bar of soap

And I still have 3 bucks left over. Schwing!
I’ve also bartered with my roommate, cleaning up after his party on Friday in exchange for a fork.
Life is good. 3 dollars and a fork can take you a long way.

Now I’m going to boil some water to drink and take a nap.

Don’t worry though.

I’m not already wiped out from half a day of the challenge.

Naps are just what I do on Sunday Afternoons.

-Trenary