I joined Eric on the Refugee Diet on Thanksgiving Day not only to support him on a holiday surrounded with an abundance of food but to hopefully make a larger impact on the message of the importance and urgency of Darfur.

I started the morning with the cream of wheat cereal and hot water. I was still hungry after that and I couldn’t wait till my next meal. Lunch of cracked wheat finally came around and I eagerly chowed down only to find that I still had the “I’m ready to eat now” feeling. At times I felt like I was in a daze but I kept myself preoccupied with the company around me. The smells of Thanksgiving dinner cooking began permeating my nostrils and my stomach growled at me. Thanksgiving dinner began and Eric and I began to eat our split peas and cracked wheat. The food being passed around was tempting but I was so ravenous I kept my eye and mouth on my food like a wolf. My stomach started to hurt after the peas and only half of the cracked wheat. Watching Eric over the month I had noticed that it took him a very long time to eat the cracked wheat and sometimes he did not eat all of it. I would ask him “Aren’t you hungry? Why don’t you eat all of your wheat?” and he would reply “Well, the wheat makes me feel full, but yet I am still hungry.” It was hard for me to grasp this concept until I actually tried it. I could only eat half the wheat because my stomach was telling me “no more”, but something deeper inside me still had a feeling of, “this isn’t right, I need something else to be satisfied”. At this point I empathized with Eric, as I now new how he felt when eating the wheat.

Even though it was only a day, not even close to the 5+ years the Darfurians have been on the diet, I can extrapolate my experience and empathize even more with the Darfurians’ struggle. From what I have experienced through all of this, I believe that if people try to empathize by connecting experiences, they will feel more connected to the struggles of others and will therefore be more motivated to help in the fight for peace, justice, and LIFE.

My greatest gratitude and admiration goes out to Jeremiah and Eric for this honorable dedication in the fight and awareness for the Darfurian people, genocide and malnutrition which plagues our world.

Empathy is the greatest of virtues.

Below are some photos documenting the observable effects of living on a wheat diet of 1,000 Calories a day for just 1 month. The left shows me at 157 lbs on Nov 1, and the right shows me at 134 lbs on Nov 30. So in just 30 days I lost 23 lbs. I am a healthy adult and I will put the weight back on and be fine. But there are children that have lived their entire lives in the refugee camps without even minimally sufficient nutrition. They won’t be fine. The damage done to their bodies is permanent and will plague them forever.

Thanksgiving was what I had been looking forward to all month. My girlfriend Willow, who has given me rock-solid support and without whom I wouldn’t have been able to make it through the month, joined me on Thanksgiving and shared the refugee rations with me for a day. Her body did not react well to the unusual wheat diet and she spent most of the day not feeling very good. For me, it was the 27th day of the same thing so sitting in front of a spread of food that I wouldn’t be enjoying did not bother me at all.

I was excited to be able to sit down with my friends, family, and extended family and engage them in a discussion about what is going on in Darfur. I shared a video about the Tents of Hope project and several i-ACT videos with them. We talked about how the government was involved, their tactics, and the current situation in the refugee camps. They asked how they could help. I explained to them that food aid and support is needed now, but that ultimately we must force our government and the international community to intervene because maintaining the status quo means maintaining an unacceptable situation. I told them how easy it would be for our government to improve the situation with relatively little cost, how providing just a few helicopters could make a big difference.

They saw how much weight I have lost in just 1 month and I explained to them that people have been in the camps for over 5 years now and are in much worse condition. I told them about how the children’s orange hair color is from malnutrition. Even after being on this diet for a month, I still can’t imagine what it would be like to live like this month after month, year after year. And I am only approximating one of the numerous miserable conditions the people of Darfur have been forced into.

We reflected on how blessed we are, and struggled to comprehend how the world can continue to let the genocide in Darfur rage on.

My First Thanksgiving

I never would have imagined that my first true Thanksgiving would be my first Thanksgiving without any special, or typical, Thanksgiving meal.

Due to some sickness, and traveling schedules, we ended up not being with any extended family this weekend.  My wife, son, and I ended up spending a few hours with some friends, but none of us ate any Thanksgiving dinner.

This whole experience has giving me something special.  For twenty-eight days I have ate most of my meals in solitary and silence.  With each meal I took the time to think about the Darfur refugees; those who have survived genocide and that are struggling for survival.  I guess I have done what we do every Thanksgiving, gives thanks for that which I have, and remember those that are in need.  This whole month has taught me this powerful lesson in a whole new way.  It’s hard to comprehend that so many in this world live in starvation, and so many die from the lack of food.  With all of our technology and advances in society, we still haven’t been able to figure out one basic principle, to feed every child.

I hope and pray for those in need and for the refugees of Darfur.  I hope that I may never forget the miracle of food and the blessing of being healthy.  I hope to be grateful everyday for the food that I have, and not on just one special day of the year.  I hope that we may all take the time and do what is needed to end all of this.

A friend recently sent me a very appropriate e-mail that compared a week’s worth of food in various cultures. There were pictures of 10 families with their weekly groceries. At the top of the list was the Melander family in Germany, the Revis family in the United States was next, and at the very bottom was the Darfurian Aboubakar family in the Breidjing refugee camp in Chad. In one week the Melander family spends $500.07 on groceries, the Revis family spends $341.98, and the Aboubakar family receives $1.23 worth of food aid. The images come from the book Hungry Planet  by Peter Menzel.

The Melander family

The Revis Family

The Aboubakar family

Today marks the 2/3 point of the month, and 1 week until Thanksgiving in the US. Yesterday I saw, the first of I’m sure many to come, “news” segments on how to avoid gaining weight this Holiday season. Our biggest problem for a few weeks out of the year is having too much food. For over 5 years now the Darfurians in the camps have had the problem of not having enough food, and that is only 1 of the many challenges they face — Some people have real problems.

Well, Jeremiah and I are now on the last leg of our month-long action. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving because of the opportunity it will give me to talk to my family, Willow’s family (my girlfriend) and my high-school friends back home about what is happening in Darfur. I am putting together a collection of i-ACT videos to share, hopefully to be watched while everyone is eating their turkey and yams and mashed potatoes and cranberries and stuffing and green beans and ham and…. and I’m eating my bowl of wheat like Husna and her family will be eating just like every other day.

Things have been rather slow for me at my job this month, but they are finally starting to pick up. I sat in a meeting today and it was especially hard for me to stay focused. I felt hungry pretty much the whole day today, and it makes it hard to concentrate and stay motivated when you’re hungry. I thought about how amazing the children in the refugee camps are. They have been living off their meager rations for way longer than me, and yet they still have a burning desire to continue their education. They know that education is the key to their future and the future of Sudan, and they are willing to do anything to continue their studies despite all the challenges they continue to face.

Haroum is a Darfuri refugee, living in camp Djabal in Eastern Chad. He is in the sixth grade and would like to continue his schooling, but there’s no seventh grade class. Haroum and his classmates do not have many options as they grow older. Many of the boys return to Darfur, where they become prime targets to be killed. They all dream of a future and ask for our help

I was advised again that I should start some sort of multivitamin.  This has been about the fifth serious request that I have had to start doing so.  Today it was from my brother who is in pharmacy school.  (Thanks Jed, but I don’t remember you being all that concerned for me when I was stuck in the coup in Chad)  I am not surprised about the concern of my friends and families, but I am surprised that eating theses rations, even for just thirty days, can be harmful to my health.  I have been specifically told with the lack of calcium I could experience bone loss, the lack of vitamins will lead to a low red blood cell production and could lead to other symptoms and problems.  (I really don’t know what I am talking about, so I hope I am passing this information along correctly).

My two-year old son, Boston, has been sick the past couple of days, and I have been coughing.  So with all of this said, I will begin to take a multivitamin.  I thought about doing this from the beginning, but have put it off until now.  I now feel it is the right thing for me to do.  My purpose in doing this wasn’t to put my body at harm in any way, and by taking a vitamin I will be putting my family at ease and hopefully fight off any cold or flu.

It is amazing how this ration of food is so unhealthy to be on for even thirty days, yet the refugees have been doing it for over 1,800 days. There are so many growing children that need the crucial nutrients to grow.  Before the genocide started they had milk, a variety of fruits and vegetables and ate a more complete diet.  Now they are given “filler” foods in order to pro-long life, yet their bodies will suffer major long-term effects if they live through this.

Please remember that there is a genocide happening right now on earth.  And instead of these amazing people being in concentration camps, they are struggling for survival in refugee camps.  We can still help.  We can get them back to their homes to start their lives over again, but the time is running out.

Sunday night and Jeremiah and I are now on the downhill half of the month. I’ve been having trouble finding the focus to sit down and write a journal entry. At the start of the month I thought that I would be much more focused on the seeking empathy aspect of this fast, but I am finding that all the distractions of everyday life are clouding that. To be honest, I find that a little dissapointing. Unlike Jeremiah, I have not been to the refugee camps so my friends and family are not as aware of how much ending this genocide means to me. I sent an email out on Friday to my friends and family and I have received incredible support. My hope is that the support shown for me will be extended into action for the people of Darfur. So as far as that goes, I am upbeat about how things are going.

I am still averaging around 1 pound a day of weight loss, but I expect that to stabilize soon. I started at 157 lbs and I’m now 141 lbs. I am tightening my belt more than I’ve ever had to to keep my pants up. In the middle of the 2nd week I started to really obsess over food. I went onto restaurant review websites and made notes about which places I would eat at next month. This phase seems to have passed, and I now have no problem eating my rations while sitting next to much more desirable food. This picture shows the “his” and “her” dinners at my apartment tonight.

Physically, my body is coping reasonably well with the diet. Aside from weight loss the only real problems I’ve been having are unusually bad muscle aches and soreness. I normally eat a high protein diet and the drastic reduction in protein might be the cause of my muscle issues. But I certainly can’t complain because I am still sleeping on a nice comfy bed, not directly on a dirt floor like so many in the camps must do. The human body is so resilient that I don’t think that 1 month of being on the refugees rations can serve as a meaningful basis to extrapolate and understand the long-term effects of this insufficient diet. Part of me feels like if someone were to go on the refugee diet for just 2 or 3 days they might come away with a strong connection and sense of empathy by just going through the more difficult initial transition. This might be something that more people could participate in safely. I have never had issues with eating or dieting, but I do recognize what I’m doing as basically living with an eating disorder for a month. And while I’m personally comfortable doing this, I would worry about potential long-term effects on other people that might be vulnerable to acquiring an eating disorder.

If you were to turn on the TV right now it might look as if all of Los Angeles (where I live) is burning down. My mind has been wandering and wondering, “What if…”. What if the government told us that terrorists started all these fires that have destroyed hundreds of homes in southern California? What would our response be? Would people in Vermont shrug their shoulders in apathy and not care because California is so far away from them? Would they say that it’s our problem and doesn’t affect them? No, they would rally behind us and send as much support as they could. Why is this? Because we are Americans and if Americans are attacked we all band together and support each other. So then why are people in this country willing to broaden their net of concern from their neighborhood to their city to their state to the national level, but are unwilling to take it beyond the country’s borders? My hope for the future is that people will grow to embrace their responsibility to all the people on earth with as much enthusiasm as they embrace their responsibility to their fellow country-men today. Maybe when this happens the member nations of the UN will live up to their Responsibility to Protect, and the awful atrocities in Darfur will finally be stopped.

“Rise and shine campers…..it’s Groundhog Day!”  Another day, another bowl of wheat.  My meals are becoming so monotonous; at least I have made it to the halfway point.

My hearts go out to all the refugees, not only are their meals the same (day day-in and day-out for five years), but there entire life must seem this way.  They live in a tent, in the desert.  There is no work, and no school past 6th grade.  There is very little for any of them to do, other than struggle for survival.  Five years…I just can’t comprehend it.

I thought I would attach this photo.  This is a photo comparing the salt, sugar, and oil that the refugees get on a daily basis and comparing that to what is in my cupboard and my fridge.  We all have this variety available to us on a daily basis (either in our homes, or at the store).  All of this gives our food (and our lives) some variety, helping to keep us from getting into any sort of “Groundhog Day.”

I am a little perplexed on why we cannot save Darfur?  Here in the US we live in the most prosperous nation on earth.  Why can’t we help those in the most unfortunate place on earth?  Why does this continue to go on for so long?

We recently elected a new President into office and went through a long and costly campaign for both Republicans and Democrats.  I find in amazing how (at least the last three elections or so) our country has been divided nearly down the middle.  There isn’t a huge percentage difference for those voting for one side, or the other.  As so many of us our divided in our political opinions and desires, I would love to see us come together as a nation.  I would love us to come together, to have the same passion we had during the elections and take that energy and come together like we did after 9-11.  We can come together as a nation, and we can come together with the international community as well.

What better cause to come together on than Darfur.  Not only can we help heal the hearts of millions of Darfurians, we can heal our own hearts as we come together over a greater cause, something bigger than us all.  I believe we can save Darfur, but I am starting to believe it won’t happen unless everyone becomes involved.  This needs to be the consistent talk on the news, in our schools and our jobs.  I believe it needs the passionate involvement of everyone, and I doubt if it can be done any other way.

I feel much better now that my headaches are gone.  I had a constant, pounding headache that started the morning of day three and went to day seven.  They have now past, which I am extremely grateful for.   I imagine it was my body adjusting to not getting enough sugars, carbs, or something.

I am now starting to feel a little weaker.  I spent a few hours in the park yesterday.  The sun was pretty hot, (not Africa desert hot, but around 90). I ended up going about five or six hours in between meals and I was starting to feel a little weak, and tired.  I honestly don’t know how the refugees can survive this.  I have the luxury of conveniently spreading out my meals and cooking them every three to four hours, which I know that is not what they do.

The wheat is getting really old.  I love my daily peas (1/6 cup), I boil them, then I use my daily rations of oil and salt, (2.4 teaspoons of oil and 1/10 teaspoons of salt) and it is one tasting treat.  Eating the wheat is sort of monotonous.  I don’t know if you have ever had a diet that consisted of 80% wheat, but it is bland.  I have started putting my ½ teaspoon of sugar right in the middle of my wheat.  Then I’ll eat around the edges, and at the end I have this sweet center, sort of like dessert.

I just can’t imagine doing this for five years.  It’s just unbelievable.  I know there are so many physical side effects from eating this diet that lacks the basic nutrient content that one needs; I can also see that there would easily be an emotional and physiological side effect as well.  And this is just one tiny fraction of what the Darfurians have had to survive through, and continue to survive through.

Today Eric is in Washington D.C. for the Tents of Hope event on the National Mall. He brought his rations and a small cookware set with him and cooked his meals in his hotel room.

Today is day 5 and I just finished doing some light yard-work at my Grandma’s house. I only worked for a half-hour, and didn’t do anything very intense. I managed OK, but toward the end I could tell that I wouldn’t be able to keep it up for much longer. I am thinking about all of the i-ACT videos I’ve watched where people are doing much more intense manual labor: digging ditches, making bricks, pumping water, carrying large sacks of grain around. On only 1,000 Calories a day I have lost over 5 lbs in just 5 days, and aside from the very minor yard-work today, I haven’t been physically active at all. The numbers add up, but just barely. With the amount of food the refugees get in the camps they’re kept alive, but just barely. Any disruption in the delivery of food aid will spell disaster for millions. And the grim news is that the World Food Program and other organizations have suspended operations in parts of Darfur because of attacks on relief convoys. There is no way for me to connect and empathize with this volatile aspect of the food aid situation. I know that my food, however little there is, will always be waiting for me.

This afternoon I helped my Grandma pick persimmons from her tree. This activity reminded me of Adam, a truly inspirational leader that Stop Genocide Now met on i-ACT 4. He told us about the bountiful garden he had in Darfur where he grew papaya, mango, palm, guava, and many other plants. But he lost it all when he and his family fled the village. I can’t possibly imagine what it would be like if it was my Grandma in a village in Darfur that was attacked and forced to flee while people all around her were murdered and raped. Adam doesn’t have to imagine because he lived through it, and now he is stuck in a refugee camp with nowhere to go. His own government is perpetrating the genocide so he and everyone else in Darfur must look beyond their country’s borders for hope. Watch the video below to connect with Adam and hear his message:

“We have no hope except international community. And my message to American people — not to forget us. You must stay with us because without your help we don’t see any hope, no hope at all. We are desperate in need of international community.”

Maybe I will come back to my Grandmas and pick a persimmon for myself at the end of this month, but for Adam there is no end in sight until the international community steps up and takes ACTION to end this genocide.

I am now four days into this little journey.  I was thinking about perspective vs. sacrifice.  It is taking me a lot of sacrifice (at least in my mind) to gain a little perspective on the life of a refugee.  Yet this sacrifice, compared to what the refugees live through, is absolutely nothing.  And four days into this, I already have fears that I can’t complete it.  (But we’ll talk about this later)  The people of Darfur have been going through this for over 1,800 days, and their daily rations are only a small fraction of what they have to live through.

For example, yesterday I woke-up really dehydrated, my lips where dry, and I had a headache (maybe something to do with the high fiber diet).  So during the day I drank about a gallon and a half of clean, fresh water.  I was also able to take a hot shower and do laundry, all luxuries that the refugees don’t have.

It does take me about twenty to thirty minutes to cook each of my meals, sort of a pain.  But again, I don’t have to go and collect firewood to cook the food.  I just have to click on my fancy stove (and I even have that clicking device that lights the gas, so no need for a match).  The collecting of firewood is a major problem for the women.  They often have to walk a long way to collect firewood, and by doing so, they are leaving themselves vulnerable to attacks of rape.  I can’t imagine what it must be like to sacrifice being raped, in order to collect some wood.

The overall living conditions of the refugees are just unbelievable.  They live in tents that are five years old and are in terrible condition.  Many of them sleep directly on the sand, and the tents provide little protection.  I have a comfortable bed, and if it gets hot, or cold, I just adjust the temperature in my home.

I hope we can do more.  I hope as a nation, with all that we have been blessed with, we can reach over to the other side of the world to help those that are in such need.

Today is the 3rd day of my refugee diet. I’m sitting at my desk at work eating my lunch of a 1/2 cup of cracked wheat and a teaspoon of sugar. I cooked it on the stove this morning while I got ready for work, and reheated it in the microwave. This morning I watched an i-ACT video profiling a young Darfuri refugee named Ahmat. He proudly describes the life his family lived back in Darfur — eating meat, owning camels and goats, playing football and riding bicycles. This is an important message for people to get: the people of Darfur were self-sufficient and happy with the life they had back in Darfur. I have talked to people that do not know any better and think that all of Africa is full of misery and that the suffering in Darfur is just a continuation of it. My message to them is to please stop and take some time to learn about what life was like in Darfur before this genocide was unleashed. Watch and listen to Ahmat:

A diet of only wheat and split-peas is NOT what Darfurians ate in their villages before they were bombed, attacked, murdered, raped and burned down. They ate vegetables, meat, grains, fruit — the same variety of foods that you and I eat. I have only been on this diet for 2 1/2 days now, but I’m already finding myself uninterested in my food and having little desire to eat it. My hunger tells my brain that I need it, but my stomach protests and pretends to be full. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be forced to go from having a rich and varied diet to these bland rations. For me this is a choice, and although I continue to choose to abstain from the wealth of food that surrounds me, I still have the comfort of knowing that it is always at my reach, and that it will still be there at the end of this month waiting for me. The refugees like Ahmat do not have this same comfort. For some of the younger children, this is what they have known their whole life. Yet they continue to keep hope alive and believe that the world, and the United States especially, will come to their rescue. But it has been over 5 years and we continue to let them down and let the genocide continue both by attrition through starvation and through bold new attacks on refugee camps.

The introduction video to show the daily rations of the refugees living in camps of Eastern Chad.

Empathy: ability to understand and share the feelings of another. How do we achieve empathy for another person?  I imagine in certain situations it is possible to share the feelings of another, but to share and understand the sufferings of a refugee, well, that is another thing. However, over the past year I have come to learn so much about these amazing people and I come to learn some things about empathy as well.

My trip to Africa, and to the refugee camps, completely changed my life.  I will never be the same and my life perspective will never be the same.  My eyes were opened as I saw first hand the life situation of so many.
It has now been nine months since my trip to Africa.  I have pondered a lot about the trip, the situation of those that are displaced and living in refugee camps.  Through all of this I have come to a conclusion; in this situation (and with many others) you can’t have true empathy.  I was there in Africa, looking at these battered tents in the desert, yet I still couldn’t get it.  I have no idea what it is like to live in a tent in the desert for five years…absolutely none. I have no idea what it would be like to be woken up by bombs early in the morning then to have to escape my burning village while women were being raped and men being killed. 

With that said, I have found something so important and I believe it is a principle to truly live by, and that is to seek empathy.  My trip to Africa did changed my life, but my life really began to change when I learned of Darfur, when I saw some amazing stories from this website and when I first tried to understand what was happening there.
We can’t put ourselves in shoes of a genocide survivor and fully understand what they have gone through, but it is so important to try.  I believe seeking empathy is important for two reasons. Something happens as your try to understand another’s heartache.  One, you become compelled to move, to do something.  The more you learn the more you understand.  The more you understand the more action you take to change another’s life.  At the same time a profound change is happening to you.  As you step outside yourself and serve others around you, your life is changed.

During the month of November, myself, and fellow Stop Genocide Now teammate, Eric Angel, will attempt to share this principle with you as we seek to gain a little more understanding about the life of a refugee.  Our goals are to spread awareness about this cause and hopefully inspire people to do more.  We hope to give you a little more understanding of the life of a refugee as we journal the effects of eating a 1,000 calorie diet for one month. We have tried to match the rations of a refugee as closely as possible.  Our daily rations will consist of wheat, split peas and little amounts of sugar, salt and oil.

We invite you to take a moment and try to understand more about Darfur.  Take some time to learn of this genocide, learn why it is happening, and who is being attacked.  Learn how the government is involved and learn about those who are helping the situation and those who are hurting it.  
Most importantly, take a moment to meet a refugee.  This website is full of pictures and videos of the refugees.  Take a little time to become personal with them and to be inspired by them.  Learn their names, recognize their faces and hear their stories.  They need you.  They need your help, your sacrifice, and your voice and (I hope you can really get this point) you need them too.  You may never meet these amazing people and your life paths may never cross, but you can give them hope and a future.  You can save their lives, and as you do so, they will save your life too.

Follow Husna as she receives rations for her family of five. Jeremiah and Eric are basing their rations on Husna’s monthly food allotment.

Based on what we observed on our most recent trip to Chad, Jeremiah and Eric will try to closely match the daily rations of a Darfur refugee.

Cracked Wheat - Daily, 7 oz. (weight not volume) (686 Calories)
Farina Wheat Cereal - Daily - 1.17 oz  (weight not volume) (123 Calories)
Yellow Split Peas - Daily 1/6 Cup (82 Calories)
Oil - Daily 2.4 TSPNs (96 Calories)
Sugar - Daily 2 TSPNs (30 Calories)
Salt - Daily 1/10 Teaspoon per day.

Total of 1,017 Calories

For most in the United States, November is a month to give thanks. On Thanksgiving Day, we gather at our homes and enjoy great food and the company of loved ones. Refugees in and from Darfur have been deprived of a home; many of their loved ones have been killed; and they lack enough of the basics, such as food and water. In solidarity with all of the displaced from Darfur, SGN teammate Jeremiah Forest will participate on a month-long fast, matching his diet to the ones of refugees we have recently visited in the desert. Miah will write daily journals and regularly upload pictures and video, sharing his experience.

Join him for a day or more of his fast. He’ll let you know what he’s eating, which will be the same thing during the entire month! Please donate to improve nutrition in the camps:

Make checks out to: USA for UNHCR
On memo line, write: SGN - Nov Fast

Send to:
Stop Genocide Now
1732 Aviation Blvd. #138
Redondo Beach, CA 90278

100% of tax-deductible donation will go to UNHCR’s work to improve nutrition at Darfuri refugee camps.