I'm spending a few weeks in a small village in central Portugal nannying a vegan kid and cooking vegan food for him. While meeting some of the friendly expat locals there, we got talking and decided to put together a benefit vegan dinner buffet/musical performance at the beautiful Casa Bela Vista for the animal victims of the Greek fires. Doing the two things I love the most: performing and cooking! 

​Participating in charity events is a great way of meeting new musicians! CalaBLAST #15 Music Showcase at the Calabash Bistro, Chinatown Vancouver, is organised once a month by a cool guy called Ian Is who runs a lot of open mics around town. The charity this month was Mission Possible, an organisation that provides opportunities to people challenged by homelessness and poverty. I'm glad I was invited to contribute to this one. Gastown, Vancouver (where I'm currently staying) has a huge amount of homeless people & addicts in an otherwise affluent city. I also recently did some volunteer shifts at The Dugout soup kitchen where I met many disadvantaged people in the area that this organisation is attempting to help.

​After weeks of organising, and recruiting various people to help me with the gig promotion & raffle prizes, tonight was the night for a (mostly) female line-up benefit show at the Gaslight Cafe, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! There were 7 acts and the evening ended with an open jam session. Tonight, we raised over 1700RM (over $400USD) for the WAO (Women's Aid Organisation) in Malaysia. We reached beyond capacity & had over 100 paying audience members throughout the evening! The night was filled with an assortment of female vocalists and instrumentalists (and a few male too!) and new friends were made with some local musicians meeting each other for the first time!

​I rescued some roses that were thrown out (because they were in full bloom -- still looked beautiful though!) and decided to give them out while I busked. Most people walked by with confused looks on their faces & were quite shy to take one. Reiterating 'they are free' helped, but I guess people are just not used to receiving gifts from strangers...