Day 6 of the Refugee Ration Challenge. Aside from meal times when we get very excited about fried rice & flour cakes, the day is grey. Mentally I’m blurry and emotionally I’m drained. The odd thing is that I know this state is a product of the food I’m eating, but I still look for some other, external incident that makes me so glum. Yet there’s nothing. Life is good – we have water, a safe place to sleep, family and friends – we’re just hungry and haven’t had a fruit or vegetable this week (aside from 170g of spinach that we shared, which sadly ran out yesterday).

I stepped on the scale this morning, and found that I’m down to 57.3kg – a 2.7kg (6lb) loss since the morning of day 1. Reading is difficult. I’m in the midst of a Cormac McCarthy book and his lack of some punctuation – easily adapted to in normal circumstances – is downright baffling in my mental state. I find myself re-reading pages over and over again to get the gist of things. It’s the first time I’ve ever been tempted to just watch the movie instead.

Tomorrow we’re going to see the NSW Waratahs rugby game and have rationed supplies accordingly. We’ll have rice-lentil-flour cakes and a thermos of weak tea (if we raise enough money by then to earn a teabag). It will be a real feast and I’m already excited. However, we need your help to get that (1) teabag! Donate now! (We love you!)