Day 3: Of the Hunger Project

Today was pretty good considering I haven't eaten anything but a handful of cheerios, bananas, and crackers in three days. It's amazing how a body can quickly adjust. I didn't have any appetite until almost 4pm. I ate my crackers and actually felt kind of full after. I haven't touched the other food yet. No headache today but it's not even 7 pm and I'm dead tired. I'm so thankful for water to drink because it definitely helps me get through the day without food. It makes me so sad to think that most other countries don't even have clean water for their children to drink.

This project has already been rewarding for me even though it's based on an awful situation. Even though I'm not to that true hungry point yet, every time my head hurts or my stomach growls I think about hungry people around the world. That's what this project is all about making sure I never forget and hoping that you'll never forget. Never forget to pray, never forget to help, never forget to be thankful...

On to Day 4- Here's to not forgetting!
Shannon

Day 2: Of the Hunger Project

Today was a long day. Tuesdays are always long because I leave for work at 5:30am and don't get home until 9:30 pm. Today seemed extra long though. Meal times seem to break up the day. I never realized how much I schedule and measure my day by when the next meal is. When you are not really eating the day just drags by and you are more conscience of every moment that ticks by. When I woke up this morning I had no appetite which helped me get all the way to 12 pm before a hunger headache hit. My left eye and temple throbbed from lack of sugar and caffeine. I chose to eat the cup of cheerios at that point to help subside the headache but I think I should have chosen the crackers first because the bland oats were useless. I wasn't going to make the same mistake as yesterday and eat two of my three rations at once so I guzzled some water and hoped the cheerios would help me get through couple of hours. At 4:00 I was a bit edgy and my head was pounding so I ate the 5 saltine crackers which helped a little. At 7pm I had to focus in a class so I ate my banana but I felt so lethargic afterwards that I had to put my head down. Within about 10 minutes the banana worked it's magic and I gained some strength and energy from it.

Overall though other than being a tad bit lethargic and the headache I still felt pretty decent. At this point the worst thing is feeling hungry and smelling and seeing food around me. I think of all the children who go to school or walk through their city and smell the foods all around them and yet never have the chance to taste them. I think about their empty stomachs growling at the sight and scent of food around them. We ate at Pizza Hut after visiting the orphanage one night in Honduras and I made a comment about how I bet the orphans would love if we threw them a pizza party to which a Honduran resident replied, "they've probably never tasted pizza in their life."

One day I'm going to throw those orphans a pizza party but until then I'm going to tell their story and seek to understand what they feel/ go through a little more. I'm not there yet-time to get even hungrier!

As you sit down and eat tomorrow with your families thank God that you and your children don't go hungry and remember those who do.

Shannon

Day 1: Of the Hunger Project

Today is the first day of my hunger project and boy has it been tough. For a little caution and safety I did ration a meager amount of food (a piece of fruit, 1 cup of dry cheerios, and 5 saltine crackers) to eat throughout the day, just to ensure I didn't pass out at work... I figured this would be the equivalent of what a impoverished child/adult may have access to in a day.

I left for work at 5:30 this morning and by 7:00am my stomach was already begging me for food. I drank two bottles of water to try to push off the hunger because it was to early to break into my small food stash. By 10am I had drank two more bottles of water and finally gave into eating half of the banana (the other half was rotten-how appropriate.) Other than my stomach growling I felt fine. By 3:00 I had to dip into the crackers which was the wrong thing to do because as soon as they hit my stomach it awakened the hunger pangs and I gave in and downed the cup of cheerios. Now it is a little after 7:00pm and the days rations are gone. I am furiously chewing gum and drinking water hoping for a false feeling of full. I can't lie that I am excited to sleep so I don't think about being hungry or about food for a couple of hours. I still feel fine overall and my energy and clear mind are still intact, which tells me this is not the hunger level I am pursuing. I need to get hungrier. Thus it continues....

Shannon

The Hunger Project

I've always been a tangible, learn by experience kind of girl. I wish I was that person who could be told the stove was hot and could walk away, but no, I have to burn myself to truly understand that it is hot. This fact about myself means I often have to explore the simple and complex concepts of life using a hands on approach. I think that is why I find my heart beats the strongest when I am traveling. There is something about being in a new land, with new people, and new sights that makes one ponder the deeper, confusing things in life.

I just returned this past weekend from Honduras. It was my first trip there and being the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere it was my definitely my biggest glimpse into true poverty. Don't get me wrong, I have seen children in rags and shoeless walking the streets in Europe and I have seen deformed and malnourished children tied to beds in Jamaican orphanages. Even still, something was different about Honduras. Maybe it was the widespread poverty that seemed to touch almost all city and country inhabitants or maybe it was just the extremeness of the poverty (no shoes, clothes, food and little shelter....). Whatever it is/was, it shook me. When I close my eyes; I see the toddler whose ribs stuck out but whose belly was hard and big from worms. I see the shame in the school girl's eyes as she tried to hide the skin disease on her feet as I fitted her for shoes. I see the desperation in the mothers' faces as they ran behind our supply truck hoping for just a little more. Children caged like animals in an orphanage surrounded by barb wire-well, it's just not right.

Every day I passed out supplies and every day I left those bordos and orphanages and headed back to my hotel. I'd be exhausted by the time I got there and I'd be "starving." Long days in the heat doing manual labor and passing out all of those supplies sure gave me an appetite and I'd woof down an amazing dinner in a Honduran restaurant.

Then, I got back to the States and a friend emailed me about the famine in Somalia that is killing tens of thousands of children. I watched video clips of children in this famine who are as thin as my arm who are just slowing wasting away without food and water. Then I looked through my trip pictures and saw the devastation and hunger represented there as well, and I wondered to myself; "What is it like to be hungry?"

Now I'm not talking about that "starving" feeling that I talked about above when I referred to myself being hungry after 5 hours of not eating something. I'm talking about true hunger that comes from days and weeks of not eating anything substantial or maybe nothing at all. After mulling over this question for two days and finding no real peace about it I knew it was time to make it tangible. I decided the only way I am going to understand the true severity of hunger that these children face every day is by getting hungry, very hungry.

For the next week or so I will forgo food to pursue hunger. Instead of eating I will journal/blog what hunger feels like as it builds and wanes. Hopefully what I learn in my own quest will enlighten you to not forget how blessed you are and might inspire you to help stop hunger around the world.

Thus the hunger project is born. It is my personal quest to understand hunger just a little better. I will never truly understand what these children go through living in poverty; but hopefully experiencing just an ounce of it will help me never forget to do what I can to help them.

Let us be hungry to help others,
Shannon

Buggin' Out!

I call him the "Hulk." (Which works perfectly since I wouldn't use anyone's real name in my blog without their permission.) He's one of my current students and I just adore him. The reason I call him the Hulk is because one minute he's a sweet, charming little boy with a thick Southern accent (that no one knows where he got) and the next minute he's huffing, puffing and turning over chairs. Even his tantrums make me smile. He's all boy and talks about his cowboy bedroom, riding dirt bikes and how he wants to drive a pick up truck when he's older.

Yesterday the Hulk was helping me pass out some math materials during a lesson I was teaching. When he was finished I asked him to return to his seat to complete his work. He did what I asked or started to at least. I turned to write something on the chalkboard and when I turned back around there he was frozen in place with the most horrified expression on his face. He had turned a pale shade white and big, crocodile tears were streaming down his face. He may have a temper but he's definitely not a crier so I was instantly alarmed. "What's wrong?" I must have asked him twenty times in twenty different ways but he continued to silently cry. At this point he was visibly shaking and after what seemed like hours he finally choked out a single word, "b-b-b-b-u-g.

Now being the professional, caring teacher that I am I had no choice but to jump back and command another student to check it out because I am immensely terrified of bugs myself. The other child investigated but said he saw nothing so with all the bravery I could muster I slowly approached the potential bug zone. As I got closer, I like the other child didn't see anything so I asked Hulk to point to exactly where the bug was. He lifted his left leg and cautiously pointed to a small, white, spider-like object. I began to shake and cough not because I was scared but because I was trying not to laugh out loud. There on Hulk's leg was a tiny piece of lint that he had picked up while sitting on the carpet.

I removed the lint from his leg, and then hugged the poor, traumatized child.  Calm was restored to my classroom and I finished teaching my lesson and learned an even deeper lesson in the process. I need to stop buggin' out about the lint in my life.

I tend to be the high stress, high adrenaline type. I feel "everything" deeply, believe in "everything" passionately and do "everything" whole heartedly. Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes it makes all the lint in my life look like big, scary bugs.

I remember in college I would study hours for tests and work day and night on projects weeks before they were due. I would panic that something was going to go wrong and I was always certain that I had failed whatever I had turned in. My roommate would ask me how I'd done and I'd explain to her that my college career was over and I was going to end up as a uneducated, bum on the street. Then I'd go into class the next day my professor would pass back my test with a big red A on the top and my life would settle into a moment of calm.

Looking back all those freak out moments seem so silly now.  I wonder if I'd stepped back and let life go from A to B instead of letting my mind go from A-Z if I could have saved myself a lot of stress, tears and headache. Sometimes the things that seem so monumental in the moment end up just being a piece of lint in the big picture of life.

So... Save the crocodile tears for the real bugs and don't let lint rule your life.
Shannon

Band Wagon Blogger

I have to start out my very first blog post by admitting unashamedly that I am a band wagon blogger. You see I have always had a love, hate relationship with writing. On one hand I love that writing gives a person an outlet to be creative, expressive, and inventive. On the other hand I hate it their is a certain amount of vulnerability and transparency that is reflected in one's writing. The scariest part of that vulnerability and transparency is that it risks being misunderstood.

In the last couple of months I have become a blog reader. The first one I stumbled on when I was on a friend's facebook page. I hadn't met the blogger at that point but I was so drawn in by her writing and story that I simply couldn't stop reading. (Since then I've met that blogger and she is just as amazing as her blog.) The second blog I read was/is from two of my closest friends. In it they share their hard yet inspiring journey through a difficult time in their life. I find myself looking forward to reading these blogs each week because the posts make me contemplate life, ask questions, and relate to someone or something outside of myself. All in all I love these blogs because they inspire me!

When the idea of starting my own blog hit me one question kept coming to mind. "What makes a blog inspiring?" With that question in mind I began reading a myriad of online blogs; some from people I knew, others from strangers. After reading several the answer was clear. It's not the perfect grammar, punctuation, topic, writing style, or design of the blog that made it inspiring. No, instead it was the passion that the writer has towards the topic that drew me in. Whether it was a positive or negative situation that the writer was writing about it was powerful because of how and what it made the writer feel, think, and learn.

Now, I'm passionate about several things in life but nothing quite inspires me and fires me up like my career. I'm not talking about my "job" at a certain school or in a certain class. I'm talking about teaching as a whole because honestly my location could change and I'd still love teaching just as much. Of course my career is not anything without my students. They are what get me up in the morning and keep me up at night. :) In theory I teach them but in reality they teach me. I'm convinced that they handle and understand life better than I do. That said I couldn't write this blog without them. Their stories will be the voice from which I share my story. It's a look into, "my life through their eyes."

I suppose the possibility of inspiring someone coupled with the therapeutic release that writing brings, has trumped some of the anxiety I have about my writing being imperfect or misunderstood. I hope you'll check out my blog and I hope that something I say or share may inspire you. If nothing else I hope it'll at least make you think. Until next time.... Shannon