Make Poverty History weekend in Edinburgh
becMPH
Originally uploaded by ms_lilith. The drive up to edinburgh was quite pleasant, stopping at a lovely veggie restaurant in a old mill that had fantastic bread and cheese. We also briefly checked out a stone circle.
We got to the campsite just in time to put up Jen and Martin's enormous tent palace (I had the west wing) before heading off to a service by SCM and its international body, WSCF. The service was nice, nothing jarring about it except the over enthusiastic young man who made us practice the hymns too much before the service. I also got to watch Honorary Big Brother, liamp (who had been expecting to give an informal address to people having cheese and wine in a hall) take to the pulpit. So many people came they thought it would be better done in the main building. "I've never preached in a church before" he admitted. He acquitted himself admirably taking about SCM and what it's currently up to. It does make me cross that people of a certain age who were in SCM in the days of yore go on about how the SCM is needed to provide an alternative to fundamentalism on campus and then if you ask them to put their hands in their pockets and fund it they go all coy.
The next day we all dressed in white, got on a busful of people dressed in white, got off at an entire parkful of people dressed in white and turned Edinburgh into a cityful of people dressed in white. It really was quite striking.
We had a wander round the meadows and were unsuccessful in the hunt for me a helium balloon. I saw other people with them but failed to find the source. I picked up my cute little pink person (seen pictured with me below) from, send my friend to school, a coalition of charities that are getting kids in school to make figures representing the 100 million children who are denied an education. They got 3 million to send to Blair before he went to Gleneagles. What did strike me when wandering about was the sheer diversity of the agencies involved in the MakePovertyHistory coalition. There was your usual suspects; Oxfam, Christian Aid, Cafod etc. But there was also Islamic Relief, the Woodcraft folk, and I saw, to my delight, a young Jewish guy in a MakePovertyHistory kippah. Past protests like Jubilee2000 had a very Christian feel. The Christians are there but this is a much broader coalition and the better for it.
After quite a bit of sitting around painting our faces, putting white ribbons in people's hair, sharing a picnic lunch and waiting for the arrival of Deb on a coach from Brum we went to join the march for the one o clock start. I believe the plan was to have three starts at 11, 12 and 1 and have a minute's silence at 3 once Edinburgh was completely circled with the "human white band". However, due to the volume of people, at three we were still waiting in the park to join the march and had been transferred from one holding pen to another till it was deemed safe for us to begin. We spent a lot of the time sitting on the floor or shuffling forwards in the heat.
I always find these mass silences quite moving, so many people, so quiet. The best one I think was the one outside Westminster in May at four in the morning, knowing that there were silences for trade justice all around the world while we had ours.
By the time we joined the march I felt much like I had on the one after staying up all night. "What do we want?" "A shower and a long cool drink" Due to the power of the mobile phone ("We are passing the museum for Scotland NOW and I'm waving a pink person on a stick"), I did meet up with Philip and Dawn (who were good friends to me throughout a lonely and difficult year in Liverpool) and their new baby, Moe. Moe slept through his first protest and didn’t open his eyes to meet me.
After resting with my shoes off while 'becca and a very curly haired boy went to set a record for the biggest number of people dancing an eightsome reel, and a comedy 'carrying a big table across Edinburgh' task, we went in search of a meal. We got the meal in a car park of a mosque, £7 for two bowls of curry and two drinks, local knowledge of unlikely places to purchase cheap food provided by curly haired boy and friends.
After a drink in the beer garden of a crowded pub we made our way back to the campsite. It was very windy and we were woken at 2.27 by 'becca pathetically stating "everyone, a bad thing just happened". Martin slept through numerous attempts to rescue Becca from a cavein as her side of the tent repeatedly turned itself inside out. I came to wish I was in my tiny tent with no room to stand and dress. The tent palace faired badly in the Scottish wind and ended up with only one unbroken pole when we took it down.
The journey back provided an opportunity to introduce Big 'becca to Little 'becca as we called in on the Standish Rectory. It was good to see Michael, who I haven’t seen since he was hospitalised with pneumonia a few months ago. Thankfully, he seems to be getting better.
And your picture is of big 'becca with MakePovertyHistory written on her nose. She had to wash it off when it became "mak ouerty hi tory"