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Transcripts
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Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with your host, Nicole Rose from the
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Solidarity Apothecary.
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This is your place for all things plants and
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liberation.
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Let's get started.
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Hello.
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Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.
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I'm so sorry.
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It's been ages since I put out an episode.
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I probably sound like a broken record.
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But, yeah, it's just really tough with a newborn baby.
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Well, he's not a newborn now.
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He's a year old, but with a.
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Baby and not having much sort of devoted time to work.
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But yeah, that will be changing in.
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August when he's gonna go part time.
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To nursery, which I'm really sad about.
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But also I think, yeah, kind of need it now that he's running around at the speed of light
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and it is extremely tiring.
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But, yeah, so I'm sorry, but when.
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Yeah, when I do have those three.
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Mornings a week to work, I will.
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Definitely be trying to be more consistent.
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With the podcast and like, finally start doing some interviews again.
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I'm really exc.
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Um, but I just wanted to jump in today and
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talk about some merchandise we've got available.
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And classic.
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This is like really last minute because.
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The deadline is actually today is the last chance to order with tomorrow morning at
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8am being like the absolute cutoff.
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Originally we were doing it for.
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To finish last week, but the ******* awesome screen printers that we use had a kind of big
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Palestine solidarity order come through with like two and a thousand shirts that ran over.
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So, yeah, we kind of like had to bump our.
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Our orders a little bit, but that's obviously
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absolutely fine.
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So, yeah, we're just.
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We just decided to extend by a week.
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So we haven't seen them and there's a high
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likelihood you haven't seen them because we've been like completely shadow banned on
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Instagram.
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Like I have nearly 22,000 followers on.
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Instagram and like 20 people maybe see my posts about Calais.
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Um, so if you don't know like.
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The context in Calais, like it's this.
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Kind of border hotspot between the France.
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Between France and the uk.
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So many people come there and then try.
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Because there's no safe legal routes to.
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Apply for asylum in the UK from France.
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You have to basically get to the.
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UK to be able to apply.
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But there.
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Yeah, there's no ******* options.
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Right, so your options are a dinghy.
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Like across the Channel, which is incredibly.
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Dangerous and is one of the most.
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Dangerous pieces of water in the world in terms of how many people are dying trying
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to cross.
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And then.
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Yeah.
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Or kind of getting into trucks and.
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Vans, which is also incredibly dangerous.
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So, yeah, people are kind of forced to attempt in these ways and then.
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To apply for asylum in the uk.
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And, yeah, the kind of.
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The environment in France is like what they
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call, like a hostile environment.
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Like it is intentionally hostile by the state.
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So people are living displaced in camps.
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And tiny encampments, like, scattered around northern.
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France, like mostly Calais and Dunkirk near the ports.
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It's just like relentless, constant police harassment.
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You know, whether that's every couple of days having their tents and belongings taken.
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And burnt, or whether that's, you know.
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Being followed by police and stopped and.
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Searched and beaten and things like, you know, just.
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Yeah, I don't want.
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I should have given a content warning.
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But basically, like, all the police violence imaginable is happening and then people don't
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have access to clean water either, that.
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Constantly get sabotaged by the police.
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You know, people put out grassroots groups.
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Basically provide all the care and solidarity to meet humans, like, basic *******
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needs.
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And, yeah, it's just.
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It's just horrible.
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And there's like.
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When I first started going out, there was
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like, maybe a good couple of thousand people living around the area and now it's like, much
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harder to know.
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How many people there are because people are so dispersed.
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Because this constant strategy of evictions is.
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Really, yeah, taking its toll on people.
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But there's still hundreds and hundreds of.
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People living in these encampments that don't.
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Know where the local health services are, are living in really intense conditions.
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Obviously it's summer at the moment, but the summer comes with big challenges like
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dehydration and mosquitoes and insect bites.
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And in the kind of autumn and winter, all year round, people are struggling.
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With respiratory infections, you know, coughs, colds and flu and many more serious
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conditions that they don't have kind of access.
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To healthcare to kind of support.
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So, yeah, so we have a project.
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Called the Mobile Herbal Clinic, which is separate from the Solidarity Apothecary.
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But I'm very active in the clinic.
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I used to go to Calais nearly every month that I could before I had my baby.
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And, yeah, the project is still going.
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I'm, you know, part of the crew.
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Working behind the scenes to do the.
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Kind of admin and fundraising and things like this.
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And we have this merchandise fundraiser at.
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The moment, selling these beautiful T shirts.
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Called Plants no, no Borders or with.
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Illustrations of many of the plants that we use in the clinic.
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And we also have a second gorgeous.
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Design this year with a beautiful dandelion that my friend kind of Moving into,
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like, as.
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As if the birds are coming out of the dandelion.
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It's, like, really stunning and we've just, like, gone all out.
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We've got aprons, we got hoodies, we've.
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Got T shirts, we got prints, we've got tote bags.
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Like, we just, yeah, are trying really hard in a really difficult climate to.
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Keep fundraising for the clinic.
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So, yeah, the clinic, because of the.
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Funding limitations, hasn't been going out as much.
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People have been trying to go every other month to kind of, like safeguard.
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Resources, which is so frustrating because the needs are so huge.
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But we go out, each trip costs between 2 and 3,000 pounds.
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Like, that's what our kind of tracking.
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And maths have shown is that's how.
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Much we're spending on the medicine making, like.
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And we grow as many plants as.
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Possible, but, you know, you still have to buy bottles and labels and glycerin.
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And we don't tend to use alcohol.
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Because a lot of people in the camps are Muslim.
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Not all of them, obviously, but we.
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Tend to make our medicine with glycerin.
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Where possible and, you know, also make.
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Other things like creams and ointments and things with different infused oils.
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But, yeah, it's really expensive.
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You know, it used to be quite cheap to get to
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France, like on the ferry or the Eurotunnel, and now that's.
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Again, it's just like, everything has gone up so much, like petrol, all the things.
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So, yeah, it's very expensive to keep doing it and I wish we could.
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Just maintain, like, a constant presence there.
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But that would just demand, like, probably.
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Yeah, 15 grand a month easy on.
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Medicine making, which, for a grassroots project.
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Isn'T possible right now.
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But, yeah, we are encouraging people to sign up, giving, like, a monthly donation,
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and that is going to make the.
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Biggest difference of all in terms of creating some consistent income for us.
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But right now, one of the best.
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Ways you can support the project, other.
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Than just chucking in any donation, is.
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To buy a piece of merch.
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Um, and, yeah, I'm really sorry to put this episode out so late.
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Just.
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Yeah, my mum was away and couldn't help with the baby and my partner's been
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unwell in hospital and, yeah, I.
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Just haven't had an opportunity until now.
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Like, my partner's mum's come up for the weekend, which has just been amazing.
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So.
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Yeah, so anyway, I'm sorry that it's.
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Not gone out as much.
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I've done my best to.
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To share it to my newsletter.
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So if you're not on that.
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Please sign up as that's like the best way to
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hear all the updates if I'm not able to record these episodes.
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So yeah, all I can say is.
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Just like, please support the project.
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Please make a donation if you can.
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You know, the merch is absolutely beautiful.
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It's organic, it's screen printed by like a DIY crew like not far from where I
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live, you know.
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And yeah, completely like spreadshot free.
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I know, like this like consumption economy like isn't great.
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Like, I hate that we're like having to like sell and like market all the time.
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But like really without people giving a donation every month, like it's.
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It is genuinely so hard to fundraise.
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And so that's why like we do do the merch and you know, like we do need clothing,
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but yeah, it's really high quality, really beautiful.
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And this year like we've collaborated with.
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Some people with an amazing herbalist called Christelle who's in Belgium and she's
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been sending out all the, all the orders.
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To people on mainland Europe.
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We've not been able unfortunately to post.
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There ourselves because, oh my God, the last time we did it like so many things
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got stopped, stopped at customs and we had to like refund people and after having already
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paid the postage.
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For their items and it just cost us like hundreds of pounds.
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And I just said to the team like, I can't, I'm not doing it.
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Like basically like it was so much stress getting like stressed emails from
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people being like, where's my order? And I'm like, I'm not Amazon anyway.
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But yeah, Christelle's been doing that, but.
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Unfortunately the order deadline has passed.
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But we've also been collaborating with an.
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Amazing human called Elliot in the so.
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Called US to fundraise for a project there.
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So we've been doing like 50, 50 split with our merch for that project which is run by people
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like basically.
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On the border between the US and.
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Mexico doing like amazing food sovereignty work.
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Like things around horticulture and stuff.
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So we just wanted to like collaborate and the design is in Spanish.
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Um, but anyway, I have to go.
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In a second, so yeah, please check that out.
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All the information is on my website.
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Thanks so much for listening.
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I really hope to come back soon with some more
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solo episodes because, yeah.
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I just miss podcasting and I really hope to be doing some interviews as well.
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If you are interested in these issues around herbalism and border violence and learning.
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A bit more about the Mobile Herbal.
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Clinic Calais and what we do and how it works.
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I've got like a free recorded webinar that I did about herbalism and border.
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Violence, like connecting these kind of terrains of struggle and stuff.
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So I'll put a link to that.
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In the show notes.
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But anyway, thank you for listening.
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And yeah, please buy an item if you can afford
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it.
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And if you can't afford it, which.
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I totally understand, if you could just, like, share it on social media or in
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your signal chats or your networks, like, that would just.
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We would just appreciate that so much.
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Okay, thank you.
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Take care.
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Bye.
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Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism podcast.
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You can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the