100 Days 100 Dollars – A Homegrown Campaign To Change A Lil’ Piece Of The World Luke Winslade is the epitome of the hope I have in Generation Y. Not only does he share my office everyday, but he’s more than my friend and more than my brother. He’ll hate that I’m writing this – but I don’t mind so much.
Most of the time when I get inspired to join a cause, it’s because I really believe it in. But in this instance, not only do I really, really care about the difference this campaign can make.. but I really, really believe in the people behind it.
Unlike so many other campaigns, Luke shuns publicity and attention for himself. He loves Africa, loves the kids and has dedicated himself heart, soul and wallet to the cause. He’s used his amazing creative ability to communicate a message that is compelling and simple. That we can do something. Something that means a lot.
If you haven’t yet read about 100 Days 100 Dollars, then head to the website, watch the videos, see the school and facilities we’ve already built – learn to love what hope looks like.
Not only is Luke changing the world and the way his generation view their ability to make a real difference.. but education really is key to bringing revolutionary change to our world, especially for the developing world. With education comes hope, a future, the ability to think and concieve of a life that is different to what currently exists. Given the chance, these kids will change the face of Kibera, then Africa. In our life.. we are the chance they have, to give a chance to others.
Give. However and wherever you can. 4 days to go.
To this end, I encourage you, to always be generous to those who are about the work of changing the world, bringing hope into places of hopelessness. Where they are willing to go and set foot in treacherous, tragic places.. if you will not join them, then support them as they go, setting about the work of our Father.
If you need convincing that this is a GREAT little book to read try this…and this for just a taste of how these ideas about leadership and community momentum can dramatically impact what you get up to.
It also sits well alongside the ideas of Medicine Man Chief, about instinctive tribal leadership and community structure.
An eBook version of Tribes Q&A is available here, a work put together by volunteers and inspired by the book. As Seth says – juicy insight on every page and it’s very pretty too.
The world is changing. Nothing that once made sense is coherent anymore. Words are losing weight in the twilight of my own cognition. Knowledge is a semblance of skill and sorrows accumulated by glories and shame. The edges are limitless.
Born into this chaos was my grief. Born into this Unknowing was my great disbelief.
Before the chaos I had form and structure, a pathway that was clear and distinct, a way that could have been constructed out of the cement and basalt of life. Life with it’s grey, contrary nature, it’s sharp, firm edges and solid matter. Then the road would have been straight forward, with well–engineered cambers, electrified tunnels and markings as white and luminous as the moon. That would have been a road worthy of remarkable praise. Instead, I am on a dusty, dark bit-metal scar winding into a small town on the edge of nothing.
And nothing is exactly where I am right now. _____________________________________________________________________________
It’s a small room, with an even smaller bathroom. Old wallpaper with rich mustard medallions and paisley weaves interlocking, and pristine enamel window frames. The panes are small and square, mottled and smoky grey, bundled together in sets of four. Four, four, four, four, window frame, mustard paisley, window frame, four, four, four, four. I count over and over. I like the rhythm of the count while I pull back the shower curtain and twist the taps into submission. Twist, crack, squeak, thud, pop then whoosh as the water is sucked up through what must be ancient pipes, comes rushing and falling through the showerhead. The walls of the shower cubby are linoleum, cracked and peeling.
The rhythm of anything functioning as it should is soothing in the midst of chaos.
Before it all, I never paid attention to the thudding momentum of a water pump, or a refrigerator fan. Even the click of the lightbulb on and off as you open and close the door has a pretty little sway to it. Life at the end of this metal road, in the nothing, is rhythmic and calm and empty enough that the silence consumes me. The peace in measuring out precise routines and motions restores solace in my soul.
Ivan was the man about town – the one they’d call when they found a pile of bones or a suspicious looking piece of dirt. They’d phone through with that anxious tone in their voice, desperately hoping that he’d be available to look at whatever it was straight away. Mostly they wanted him to simply identify that potential pa sites were in fact natural landscapes and that the bones belonged to cows.
Every town has an Ivan. A boorishly intelligent, belligerent rebel so unfortunately useful that the town is stuck with him, precluding the nickname, “Our Archaeologist.” The knowledge that his hometown has finally claimed him does something quiet in Ivan’s spirit, particularly on days when the rugged West Coast is showing her colour. After all, his life’s work has become the landscape of her hills and the stories of her people, all the way back before the Pakeha ever set eyes upon her.
It’s because of his fascination with the district that Ivan became an archaeologist, just so he could return home after the years of study in the North, bringing reference libraries and an old set of digging tools in an appropriately aged army kit bag. No one needed to know the bag itself had been claimed from the bargain bins at the army surplus mere hours before leaving the city for the last time. After all, he had the signed piece of paper in his hand and his first offer of work on the new bypass site. He had every intention of being an traditional archaeologist, one of those types that was really in it to tell the stories of the people that had ‘been before’.
The longer it went on though, the more he saw all the places where the ‘been before’ had lived and understood the scope of the work, the more Ivan changed and the more he stayed the same.
“It’s so easy to get caught between the two worlds,” he said to Eva, who lived very much in the present. “I’m neither Pakeha or Maori, while I’m telling the stories of one in the face of the other. I’m elbow deep every day in the mess and sewage of history.”
He walked to the fridge with a swagger in each inch of his legs, hips thrust forward in the balancing posture of someone too tall for their body. Fingers wrapped around the green longnecks, he threw the twist caps to the floor and thrust one into Eva’s outstretched hand. He strutted between the balcony ranch slider and the kitchen door frame. The itch under his skin rattled around his wrist, until he finally rubbed his fingernails furiously along the side of his arm.
Eva’s eyes dropped on to his nails, still quick deep in clay and grime. She reached for him and caught the back of his thigh with her hand, an unusual gesture of affection. She was deeply reserved but his manner today seemed surly like the gathering clouds, causing her to want to connect with him. Her touch stilled his pacing but the tension stayed tight throughout the muscle, as if he was garnering the strength to leap forward.
Eva sighed, letting her thumb press slow circles into his flesh. Some days he appeared to her still like a caged bird, not yet knowing that his wings were clipped. His desire to leap into the air and flap his now castrate wings still unsettled her.
Ivan and Eva is one of the multiple writing projects currently underway.
says He: yes, I do love you. says I: why, why do you love me? says He (pausing): I love you because you can talk. About anything, and it makes sense. (laughing). And because you’re generous. says I: (laughing) with my heart or with my wallet? says He: (laughing more) with your… everything about you.
Chuckling under our breath, the mid-afternoon sun into our coffee cups. I paused, walked with you to cross the road and smelt like your cigarette smoke for the rest of the day.
And I felt known.
Conversations By Mail True romance is not just the notion of love but the gasp and the shudder of all manner of emotions in exquisite moments, captured and tasted as if in concentrate. Thus, poems of the deep heart, written by hand, sent by mail and arriving into my hand on a crisp new summer night exert everything that is good and beautiful about romance between friends.. the agony and ache of parting, the anticipation of reunion, the sorrow of distance, the joy of communicating.
There is but one poem, and it travels between us – always handwritten.
Tash McGill is a broadcaster, writer and strategist who works with people and organisations to solve problems and create transformation. She believes people are the most important thing and that stories are powerful ways of changing the world. You can find out more at tashmcgill.com or by visiting her LinkedIn profile.
