Wow, I’m actually living without a computer OR a television. It’s horrifying yet liberating at the same time. I’m still adjusting having to wade through emails every 4 or 5 days instead of reading them as they arrive.
Anyway, I thought I’d better update a nice big one, pretty much because I’ve tried to email as many people as possible with all my happenings and stuff but there’s just too bloody many. So anyway, here goes, an update on Michelle’s life…
We are now living in a flat that is about 2 km north of the city centre. It’s right down the road from Tesco (yay!), and about a 20 minute walk away from the city. About a 5 minute walk away is the Royal Canal, which is very pretty and full of ducks! Our flat is in a typical Dublin terrace house, so all the houses are connected. You open a big red door and the terrace house has been divided into 4 smaller flats. Our flat is on the ground floor near the back. It’s incredibly tiny, simply a living room with a kitchen in the corner and two small bedrooms, each with single beds. We are sharing with a Polish guy named Rafal.
Rafal is an interesting character, he is very kind hearted and friendly. He is also a devout Catholic (weeped like a baby when the Pope died), and holds typical Catholic views. For instance, homosexuals are ‘weird’ and he doesn’t think it’s right - well, he says that they can do whatever they want but should keep it to private places - “I don’t need to see two men kissing or hugging on the street, why do they need to flaunt it?” Also, women should stay with women’s jobs, he thinks it’d be horrible to have to say your mum works as a truck driver or similar. So I have now elected myself (on behalf of the women in the house) as the Official Feminist Representative of the Household. He also eats meat like it’s half of the food pyramid (the other half being the pasta/potato group). Oh, and he eats 6 meals a day. Like, Thad and I might have Mi Goreng with fried egg for tea, he’ll have Mi Goreng and 3 or 4 fried eggs and then ham and bread. Drives me crazy. Oh shit what a rant. But I do like him, I swear! I DO!
So Thad and I have jobs now, as Professional Fundraisers for a company called Face2Face. Pretty much the idea is that charities contract our company and say hey, we want a certain amount of monthly donors, can you get them for us? And so we learn about their charity, don their shirts and go out on the street and stop people and convince them that they should sign up for a direct debit to that particular charity. Currently, we’re working for a charity that helps communities in third world countries - mainly Uganda, Rwanda, Nepal and North Vietnam - through child sponsorship. This job is probably both the best and worst job I will ever have. It’s the worst because I literally have to go out on the street, embarrass myself to get peoples attention, and then convince them that they want to buy practically nothing. Also the worst because you realise how shit humanity is. But it’s the best because of the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you sign someone up. It’s just the most amazing rush. Like, holy shit, I just got a charity support for probably 4 years. I just saved a child’s life. Because I’M out here, these people in some remote community are going to get clean water, real food, education and health care. Aaahh…
The negative responses are the worst. Thad gets told to fuck off a lot, but apparently you can’t tell girls to fuck off because I haven’t been told yet. Most of the bad responses I get are actually from people who stop and that infuriates me more because they are wasting my time and the charity’s money to what? Get a kick out of being a smart arse? Some of these have been:
(I’m half way through explaining that their are 14 million AIDS orphans in Africa - and that this is growing at a rate of about 2 million a year)
“Yeah but that’s just nature compensating for the overpopulation of Africa. We should just let it happen”
OK, that’s really fair on the children. How about you go up to a 9 year old orphan who has been kicked off his parent’s land
by his neighbours, has no birth certificate (so cant buy land, get a job, leave the country or anything), has to look after his 5 younger siblings, walk god knows how many kilometres every day to get water that is full of human excretement and worse, to give to his siblings who are going to drink it and die of diahorrhea, and tell him I’m sorry - this is just nature balancing itself. Fuck OFF.
“So why don’t you get a real job”
Real? Children are dying. I’m stopping them from dying. It doesn’t get more real than that. You can go back to your retail job or your barber shop and just pretend your making a difference.
“I’ve worked for every penny I’ve ever had. They should do the same.”
Oh yeah, THAT’s how we solve Africa’s problems - tell them to go get jobs at McDonalds. Duh. Why haven’t the thousands of charities and organisations realised this before? The Africans are just lazy! That’s why they’re all starving and dying!
Another irritating one was a guy who stepped under my umbrella to talk to me (that’s how I stop people in the rain - put my umbrella over their head before asking them to stop) and wasted about 10 minutes of my time before I realised that he wasn’t listening to a word I was saying and was just waiting for his bus to stop. Arsehole. Also, businessmen in expensive suits saying “Oh, I don’t do charities” and women coming out of the 3 most expensive shops in Dublin (Brown Thomas, Louis Vitton and Gucci) with a few shopping bags and saying “Oh no, I’m too poor now to do that”.
As soon as I get back to Australia, the first thing I’m doing is sponsoring some children.
