Live Below the Line Tally

Thought you may want to know how much we brought in for Association Bayti with the Live Below the Line challenge:

$708 US aka £455 aka 6025 Moroccan Dirhams = Super Yaye! Alhumdulillah!

Here’s a nice little article in English explaining what Bayti does in their southern branch. If you would like to continue to help Bayti to help children in difficult situations, please go here or leave me a comment. Thanks so much!!

Last Day! Live Below the Line challenge

It is the last day of my Live Below the Line challenge to eat less than £1 ($1.50) worth of food daily and I have much to say and little time, so I wanted to at least bring this up. There is a hadith which I often see used in a way to support women to really dig into their roles at working in the home and serving their families. That’s great stuff, of course, but since I originally read the hadith with context, that wasn’t ever how I saw it.

Narrated ‘Ali bin Abi Talib: Fatima came to the Prophet asking for a servant. He said, “May I inform you of something better than that? When you go to bed, recite “Subhan Allah’ thirty three times, ‘Alhamdulillah’ thirty three times, and ‘Allahu Akbar’ thirty four times. ‘All added, ‘I have never failed to recite it ever since.” Somebody asked, “Even on the night of the battle of Siffin?” He said, “No, even on the night of the battle of Siffin.” (Bukhari)

The thing is, Fatima wasn’t asking for a “servant” meaning “domestic employee.” She was asking for a slave recently captured as war booty. “Slave”-  as in someone who is owned by another and has no autonomy.

Now frequently when they refer to the part of the hadith where Fatima (RA) complains about the pain in her hands caused by milling – ““Fatimah complained about the pain caused to her hand by the mill, and some prisoners had been brought to the Prophet….” People say things like “look at how she suffered for her family rather than take on a domestic worker”…. No.

Look at it this way. The Prophet (SAW) was in the process of discouraging the practice of using SLAVES- a social injustice. He suggested to her that is was better that she suffer than force that suffering onto another.

~~~

Poverty is not caused by lazy.

Poverty is caused by social injustices.

Narrated Abu Musa Al-Ash’ari: The Prophet said, “Give food to the hungry, pay a visit to the sick and release (set free) the one in captivity (by paying his ransom).” (Bukhari)

Thanks to everyone for the support and dialogue.

Here is where you can give to Association Bayti.

Day 4: Live Below the Line Challenge

I’m fasting today- hush, I’m not bragging, I’m making them up- so just had a little hot cereal and coffee for breakfast, but sending The Sons to the next village over to get us a chicken to splurge on for iftar. That will be a roughly 1 kilo chicken shared among seven people and hopefully keeping me on my budget!

~~~

Just want to thank everyone so much for their support of this project. So far you have donated $642 or £412 or 5,400 dirhams. That’s more than I hoped for and may He reward you with better, ameen!

Go here to give

Day 3: Live Below the Line Challenge

No time for a proper post or meal. Might have eaten more than my allotted day’s worth of bread- was sharing with the baby again… so far:

$0.20 coffee

$0.11 millet porridge

$0.23 bread

Brunch total: $0.54

 

Day 2 Tally: Live Below the Line

Ok, so in my new alternate reality I am either a thief or living somewhere near a foodbank which is supplementing my paltry diet:

$0.20 coffee
$0.11 millet poridge
$0.99 spahgetti w/meat sauce (I swore I would’t eat the tablespoon or so of meat- but I lied)
$0.23 bread
$0.35 cookies
$0.09 jelly candies
$0.15 tea

Daily Total: $2.12

In case this cancels out the sponsor-challenger agreement, I hope to make up that 62 cents when I am fasting on Thursday, insha Allah. Like I hoped not to eat any meat in today’s lunch…

~~~

Give here or here or here to help relieve extreme poverty.

~~~

And if you haven’t read about the Grandmother sentenced to 2.5 years jail time for stealing cassavas for her sick grandson- you should.

*** Agh. I forgot I shared a banana with the baby! $0.12!!!

Day Two: Failing to Live Below the Line

I’m not a hater. I’m actually a bit of a natural-born cheerleader. But in this circumstance I am quite relieved to see other people ‘failing’ (yes, air quotes- it’s my blog) the Live Below the Line challenge to live on less than £1 ($1.50) worth of food daily.

I ended yesterday with

$0.29 Sauteed veggie sandwich with processed cheese and pickles

$0.15 Cup of tea with splash of milk and less sugar than I would prefer

$0.12 Two homemade lumps of chocolate-covered raisins and peanuts (thanks Hun, you knew I would be a much better spouse and parent with some chocolate in me!)

$0.12 Banana

$0.09 Four (or five?) Jelly candies

Total: $0.77

Daily Total: $1.50

I think my fail happened around an extra jelly penny candy or two and then… I added some couscous broth to the sauteed veggies. Yeah, plus I skipped lunch- which was a beautiful platter of couscous with chicken and raisins and… and I stole a couple spoons of the broth. And ate two or three too many jelly candies. Fail.

~~~

Please go here to help relieve extreme poverty. I’m off to prep a bunch of cheap veggies for lunch whilst drinking “all the tap water” I can.

Live Below the Line: Day 1

Wells, it’s Day 1 of my five day challenge to live like billions of people the world over (unjustly) do- on less than  £1 ($1.50) worth of food daily. Today is not so bad as I am fasting anyway and will be skipping lunch, still half of my food budget was used up by a modest breakfast:

$ 0.20 Coffee

$ o.41 Eggs with processed cheese             

$ 0.11 Millet porridge

$ 0.06 Bread

Total: $ 0.78

So, my idea of “not so bad” means forgoing my usual butter, jelly/honey and sometimes fruit. Oh yeah, plus skipping an entire meal. Mmmhm. Have I mentioned that I am a nursing mama?

I have also posted this story about food/poverty in the US which I wrote a few years ago, and it makes me think of my sweet friend Aneesa who is doing the challenge in the US.  Go read, go give. Please