At the G8 Camp, I ate Vegan Food for a few days. One remark: body smell changes rapidly. Vegan Food does something to bodies. We should not underestimate the power of body smell for forming political coalitions. I wonder if G8 protesters and G8 politicians could in fact talk to each other given their different food consumption, digestion and body smell.

Back to G8-Kitchens: They are a very interesting institution. You can go there, eat as much as you want and pay as little as you wish. How does that work? Well, the food and the dish-washing is done by volunteers, there is no working schedule, just voluntary commitment. When people are needed to do a certain task, someone will shout across the camp and people will flock to the kitchen. Not everybody joins in, but most do. This gets the work done quite efficiently, as I could observe.

One thing I wondered about afterwards where the finances of the G8 camps. For a camp of a couple thousand people you need water, sanitary equipment, tents, kitchens, food. Surely a lot of this infrastructure is donated or paid by NGOs.

At each meal, there are a few volunteers going around with a small bag and asking for voluntary contributions. A fair contribution was indicated as 3.50 Euros, given that the food was organic food. But as I overheard from talking to some of the Campers, this was still seen as too much. (more…)