beginnings

One day last week while driving home from campus, I got to thinking about the tragedy in Haiti, and how I could help. I thought about the living conditions down there, both before and after the earthquake. I remembered a statistic from a sermon on social justice:

one billion people live on a dollar per day.

(source: http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats)

So I began to wonder... if one billion people do it every day, what would it be like?

Could i do it for a month?

I got home, and began to research the idea... to see if anyone's done this before. I found this blog:

http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/

This was really helpful. Reading this and discussing the idea with friends, I came up with the following 'rules':

1. Everything I eat for the month of February must come out of a $28 budget.
2. I cannot accept food others bought for me.
3. I cannot accept food that is available for 'free'.
4. I will take a multivitamin. I realize the 1 billion people don't have access to multivitamins, but their bodies are accustomed to their diet - mine has to adapt and change digestive pathways.

This means that when I go out to eat with friends, I need to bring my own food. It also means I won't be able to afford to drink much besides water. Each day, I will post here to document what I ate and my thoughts on the issue. I expect to lose weight over the course of the month. In anticipation of this, I've increased my food intake in the days leading up to February 1. I got schooled on baking my own bread from scratch, and researched high calorie per dollar foods. I play to buy all my food January 31st. I'll post my reciept and pictures then. I'll also give away the rest of what I'd typically spend in a month ($220) to support relief efforts in Haiti.

here goes nothing. prayers and comments will be appreciated.