Holidays, Birthdays, Raffles

Well hello! This is an incredibly slap-dash newsletter written at the last minute with quite a bit of copy and paste, just before I go on holiday. It was supposed to be written stylishly and carefully, but that was before climate changed intervened in my holidays, derailing an entire train route, and forcing me to spend far too long panicking, buying unnecessary backup tickets and then cancelling them, and changing plans somewhat, in between trying to organise to go away.

Anyway, tomorrow we are going away and will be away for a couple of weeks. The website will remain open, you can still email me, but there will be no postage (and I cannot invoice for postage because I do it entirely on weight) until I get back.

In this household it is Birthday Season! The Not-So-Small Assistant turns ten this year, and we are going to celebrate it in style with old friends and new ones and do lots of things that we all like doing, namely cake, museums, Asian food, Asian food shops, stationery shops and more museums and cake. And then shortly afterwards I turn 51. I love getting older, I am the happiest I have ever been right here right now.

Except for one thing. Every time I log into my place of work, I see things that make me regret some of the people I share this planet with.

So now, I have been running raffles for a young Palestinian man named Abdalla and his family. Abdalla is a nursing student in Gaza. I have written quite a bit about him and his situation in previous newsletters. I randomly picked him and his family from a list on the Operation Olive Branch profile, so he has been vetted and is a real genuine person, the same age as my daughter. He has lost everything, his home, his school, his future, and this raffle is to provide as much money as we can to help him keep his family fed. Food prices has skyrocketed in Gaza, as Israel has now blockaded all aid, foodstuffs and water not to mention medical supplies since early March. I was originally fundraising to his GoFundMe, but GoFundMe is not going to let him access funds until the target is reached, and in the meantime he and his family are in dire need. So, despite my hatred of Paypal, Paypal it is, because Paypal is the only way money can be transferred directly to him. even with high fees. The Paypal account he is using is not in his name, because Palestinians are not allowed to hold Paypal accounts - the owner of the account is transferring the money to a local bank. The fees incurred are high - we must just consider them as part of the cost - this is what happens in parts of the world which are being destroyed by the evil outlined in today's newsletter. I have already run several raffles asking people to donate to this Paypal account and can confirm that the money is reaching him and is helping enormously.

The last raffle, with the vintage Dutch ‘indigo’ (my apprenticeship will never allow me to call something indigo when it is not! These would have initially been indigo-dyed but this one isn’t), was super popular, so let’s do that again. You don’t have to even want the prize, but please, if my work has ever been of value to you in any way, this is what I’d like as a birthday present! (Actually I’d like the entire thing to stop, I’d like to see Israel dismantled, all her politicians plus Biden and Trump and Starmer and the German bloke who nobody knows his names and all their cabinets in the Hague, land back, reparations, and a single state negotiated out of the dismantled apartheid state of Israel…but I will settle at the moment for you entering my raffle!)

So:

This week’s raffle is for this vintage resist-dyed Dutch kerchief. These kerchiefs are a very old tradition which (yes) has its technical and stylistic basis in India, via Indonesia, via Dutch colonisation. In turn these working man's kerchiefs were the design inspiration for the rockabilly bandannas of the 1950's and beyond into the 60's and 70's. They are a design and fashion icon.

Originally they would also have been indigo-dyed. This one is not, past the late-19th century most natural indigo was replaced by synthetic indigo, but it is still beautiful. This one probably dates to the 1950’s. But it is still 40000 times better than any modern shop-bought bandanna. It is in excellent condition and measures 87cm square. It is quite simply cool.

To enter, please send €6 (or more if you can to this paypal account) : @akam0503

If it is easier you can use this link to get to that account : https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/akam0503

Take a screenshot of your donation, and send the screenshot to lagrossetoile.deux@gmail.com.

Please use this email which I set up specially for these raffles because if you use my usual email, your message might get lost.

Our objective with these raffles is to add a little bit of money to Abdalla’s family’s food kitty, as much as we can. You don’t have to send me an email if you don’t want the prize. You can donate less and not email me - even €1 helps. You can donate more (please feel free!). This is mutual aid, we do it because we can. And I will intermittently remind people via Instagram because I will draw this raffle when I am back.

You’ve all been so marvellous. I started these raffles last May, and so many of you have chipped in. The tide is turning, we have, en masse, globally, applied so much pressure in so many myriad ways, that governments are now having to mouth words they have previously been jailing protestors for saying. Don’t believe them though, they are trying to make us shut up. Don’t shut up until all our governments start behaving like Yemen. Keep the pressure on. Keep ringing, keep protesting, keep writing, keep speaking up, keep disrupting and boycotting and talking to people. And keep donating. We are exhausted, and beyond saddened and disgusted both with what we see and our leaders, who are seeing the same thing and doing nothing. But there are many of us and we are collectively causing a seismic shift, a huge historical turn. We did it before with the Vietnam War. We will do it again. Palestine will be free.

And no matter how tired or sad you are, it is nothing compared to Palestinians who have borne this burdern alone since 1948. Please help me keep one small family just a tiny bit more supported - that’s my birthday request!

Back in a couple of weeks.

xx Hanna