They are doing renovations at work so that has meant for me lots of noise with concrete cutters and hammers and other renovation tools that make lots of noise. It is a little anoying but it will be good once it is done. It also means that we don’t have a kitchen right now so the table and fridge and watever else have all been set up in the space right outside my office.

This has been good in that I have gotton to know some of the really lovely and kind people who give up their time to work in the shops but unfortunatlely today it has proved to be quite distressing. It seems that a small group of our volunteers are complete racists. Today I heard about the “stupid people who don’t speak English” and “the mean, nasty muslims who are the cause of the world’s problems” not to mention “the dole bludgers who take advantage of the society” and questions about how we are going to ensure that poeple don’t get more than one hamper. It made me so angy. I just can’t believe that attitude and especially not here where the motto we follow is “be kind and love for love is your first gift to the poor”. Here where we are told “do not blame the poor”. And here where it is Jesus Christ that we follow.

Of course by the time I had formulated a response in my head and had calmed myself down enough not to be nasty as well the conversation had finished and I had lost my opportunity to say something. Not that I would probably have the guts to anyway but these kind of attitudes upset me so and I feel I must say say something beacuse it is probably not nastiness that leads to these kind of attitudes but ignorance.