Day 1 - ready, set, starve.

WOW. What a day. Day 1 and I am already hungry all the time.

Breakfast was a kiwi, lunch was a carrot and 2 slices of bread and dinner was 100g of pasta, a few kidney beans and another 2 slices of bread.

It has only been one day and this campaign already has me thinking way outside my usual square. Although I never was at a point of starvation (except towards the end of the day), I was never satisfied. The tiny bits of food I ate kept me going, but never full or happy.

Food was also always on my mind. All I could see when I looked around was food, people eating food, smells of food, eateries, fast food restaurants, my families dinner - it never ended. I kept forgetting I was doing this and imagined all the food I would eat for lunch.

And it just made me think, because in my life I have distractions - uni, friends, sport. But what if I was living on $1.25 for real, and not just for food? Imagine how awful that would be. I would have no distractions and my stomach would be on my mind always.

Can one ever get used to the feeling of hunger?

My campaign has gained awareness from a lot of my friends, and I think this campaign will be really successful, because it breaks the barriers of developing and developed, first and third world - it crosses the line. The poverty line.

On another note - I saw a beggar today and an elderly woman commented snidely to me, "just a common beggar." This really affected me. What was the real difference between her and the beggar? Aren't we all people that deserve the same rights?

At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.

~ Italian Proverb

This is why I am doing this, and what keeps me going. We all deserve the same, basic human rights. FOOD is not something to die over. No one should die just because they are hungry. It is pathetic, especially since we have enough food to feed the world 1.5 times over.

I think I will go to bed early tonight. The lack of food is making me tired and weak, and it has only been one day. There is no doubt that I can survive this. But it's not going to be easy...

It's going to be a long month.