on living below the line

So I follow charities, I am interested in what they do and how they work. I also tend to do the easy things that are suggest. I sign petitions, send the odd email and even make the occasional donation. When the campaign to 'live below the line' came along, I thought I would sign up without looking into it too much. Essentially it asks people to live on no more food than can be bought for $1.50 a day for five days. 

I am going to give this a go, largely because I nearly do live on a $1.50 a day at the minute. Lunch costs me a dollar here in Vietnam, breakfast 25 cents and a bit of creativity will surely get me through to breakfast the next day.  I do this because I want my money for other things and not out of necessity so it's all too easy.


But I figure I will use my onlineness to generate a bit of attention for the campaign and of course for me. Afterall it is a good cause and 'Giving is good, as long as your'e getting'.

on why where he's from is still ...

I took part in the making of this video for my last job,  Healing Through Remembering work across a variety of ways to encourage people to talk about the past with a view to doing something about it, with peace being the aim.


Click here to like follow them on facebook.

by Bùi Thuỳ An

on being a suit.

I was once stoned in Newtownards while wandering around in a shirt and tie trying to sell an appalling product for an awful firm in an unsuspecting and not particularly enfranchised neighbourhood. The kids thought I was from the welfare department and was coming to take children away from their parents. I tried to explain that my presence their was actually much more insipid but they weren't quite for turning.

Another experience involved screaming kids in a flat in Beijing, where I was paying a house visit for the UN Refugee Agency. These kids thought they were being deported back to Pakistan and didn't quite get that I wasn't from the delightful Beijing Bureau of Public Security.

Now in Vietnam, I get to put the boogie woogie shoes and the best clothes to use with a little bit of appreciation or at worst apathy. I sang and danced at a reproductive health gala for migrant workers and at the end they got their collective groove on on stage for the grand finale. I probably would have gotten up anyway, but I think it made the factory workers happy that they were able to pull be out of my grey suited existence and get me to live a little.

A suit can mean different things in different places - wear with care.