First of all, the funding info: #RationChallengeUK, @ConcernUK. Here is the link to the donations: Subhadeep’s Ration Challenge UK 2021

Are we really on day six? It feels surreal that we have nearly made the week-long journey. But one thing is for sure, if I misjudged day 5 to be quiet, today was dead calm. I’m not sure what I can add to a very uneventful day, so this will be the shortest blog of the week. Wait for the strange encounter until the end.

So I had quite a bit of ingredients left and if it wasn’t today, I’d never be using them up. I planned to do many experiments but used up most of the raw ingredients upfront leaving hardly anything to play around with. I had a rice and sardine fish cake breakfast followed by some of the leftover nibbles. At lunchtime I remembered that I had a vegetable to choose now and seeing I have pretty much cooked everything to last until tomorrow, I chose onion. I made a couple of savoury pancakes with onion. They turned out slightly soggy in the middle, but tasty enough. I had them with the last of the chickpeas. The chickpeas have been a great help, I cooked them the first thing on day 1. I made them super spicy (only cumin but three types), with no salt but a secret addition of a teabag in the broth. Then at dinner time, I made the lentil fritter. They turned out rather tasty. Normally I’d put chopped green chillies but chilli flakes made them equally nice. Dinner consisted of rice (yet another time), Kidney bean stew, sardine fish cakes and lentil fritters. I had a generous portion today and for the first time I felt full after a meal this week. Then, to top it off, I cooked some rice pudding using up my milk reward. I used a handful of rice, milk and 20g of raisins to sweeten the taste. I have almost everything planned out for tomorrow. We will be going out, so I’ll have rice and last of the kidney beans stew at breakfast. Then I’ll make some sort of bread (not decided of the type) to make a wrap with sardine fish cakes and lentil fritters, chopped onions and spices. I’ll carry it with me for lunch, and some of the nibbles carrying them in my pocket.

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As I said a quiet day, I was tremendously busy with work but I didn’t have any idea what to do and whom to ask for any money. We have a quiz amongst work colleagues over Teams, and I planned to drop it in. I managed to do that but halfway through I had to do something, then everybody was busy talking about something else. Sponsorship dried up for me and for our group. Not much happened in the Facebook group either. So the last thing I’d mention is a chance encounter I had.

I was busy working on some deliverables, the project manager rang quite late in the day. I was explaining I’m really tired and she asked why. I thought it’d be a good opportunity to raise a bit of awareness, and when I said for Syrian refugees she said she is from Syria and she has first hand experience through friends and families losing jobs, homes, lives and fleeing the country. I shared the link and she was moved by the challenge and that we cared for an issue so far away from here. I hope this will facilitate some more discussions and learning about the country and its cultures, and what the future holds for Syria and to that effect the millions who fled the country.

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