Why, you ask? Well, as it turns out, I am really, really bad at getting people to give me money, regardless of the cause. I could be on the streets collecting money for disabled children and I bet you people wouldn’t give me a dime! I know this because I did [try to] collect money for disabled children, and I did in fact receive zero dimes. Well, that’s because they don’t have dimes here, but that’s not the point. Allow me to start from the beginning…
There’s a student-run organization at Nottingham called Karnival that raises money for various charities year-round. I think Karnival actually exists at numerous universities in the UK, but Nottingham’s is pretty great: last year alone they raised 2 million pounds for charity. Anyway, one of the ways you can get involved in Karni is by going on a rag raid, which is what I did last Saturday. Here are the basics of a rag raid: you pay 7 pounds to wear a crazy costume, get on a bus with other people from your hall, go to a random city in England, collect money for charity from people on the street, and get back on the bus and drink… a lot.
For my hall, the theme was Grannies & Trannies (classy, I know), and the destination was Birmingham, which is about an hour south-west of Nottingham. I was a bit nervous about going because I wasn’t really tight with people in my dorm. I had a few close acquaintances, but nobody I felt super buddy-buddy with. But I decided to be brave and hope for the best. Who knows, maybe I’d make some new friends, right?
So I dressed up in a robe, knee-high hosiery, a big sweater, and some funky old-school glasses (shout-out to Justine for being naturally inclined to dress like a granny and lending me all of the above items). The bus ride there was uneventful; made some small talk with a couple people, blah blah blah. Then we were off the bus and in the city centre and told to scatter and collect. The Karnival representatives (upper-class students who work with Karni) give us these fancy little collection cups (for lack of a better word) that we’re supposed to fill as full as we possibly can.
Well, this is where I had serious problems. Nobody wanted to give me money! I smiled and friendlily (that’s a legit word by the way) said directly to people, “Spare change to help disabled children? Spare change for charity?” which is more or less what everyone else was saying. Over the course of approximately six hours of this, I’d say MAYBE 15 people gave me money. Seriously. Oh, and the Karni reps give out punishments (just teasingly, but still) to the lowest collector on the bus, and everyone who came up to me and weighed my collection cup in their hand shouted “YES! I’m not going to be the loser!” Seriously. I probably got that more times on Saturday than I did donations. It was a sad affair.
I was seriously starting to regret ever going, not because I was going to be the “loser” so much as I was slightly depressed with the number of people willing to give 50 pence to charity. It was quite disheartening. I think I was taking it too personally as well. But anyway, I was just really glad to get on the bus to go home… And that’s when the madness began.
Karni reps started pouring liters and liters of cider, fruit punch, and vodka into a trash can on the bus. There is excessive spillage. And they pretty much just fill up plastic cups and pass ‘em down the whole bus. If you want more, you pass your cup back and they fill it up, but when a bus of 40 plus people is doing this, you’re bound to get a different cup back. I don’t want to know how many people I shared cups with on that bus. I was probably asking to get sick again, but oh well, it didn’t happen so I’m none the worse for it.
I’ve gone on way too long so I’ll wrap it up: I made a few friends on the bus ride home, so that was a success, and I didn’t end up getting punished for being the lowest collector after all, which was great! Not because I wasn’t the lowest collector though, I definitely was… just because they didn’t give out awards/punishments on this Rag Raid.
Overall, good experience. Probably wouldn’t do it again unless I REALLY liked the costume theme and had a good friend go with me.
One other quick thing: I went to a professional football (soccer) match on Tuesday! We got there late so I missed the beginning, and we were freezing so we left early, haha, but it was still a cool experience. It’s fun to listen to the crowd chant in unison. I won’t repeat any of their chants though, as they’re quite obscene. Let’s just say at home, if someone is hurt on the field, the crowd usually falls silent. In England if someone gets hurt, it gives the other team a primo opportunity to call that player particularly rude names. Talk about kicking someone when they’re down.
Sorry it’s so long! I’ll write again as soon as I have something worth mentioning!
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