Lunch With Grade R

I walked into the Grade R (Kindergarten) classroom today to ask the teacher a question. What I saw took me by surprise. Usually, the school provides lunch for the learners. It is the sole reason why some of them come to school every day and for some of them the only meal they get. The cooks are great, women from the community who volunteer, and cook in HUGE pots over a gas stove. For some reason, the past week there has been no food. As I walked into the room, the Grade R and Grade 1 learners were sitting in their little chairs at the little tables. Each had a container in front of them. Most of them had brought their own lunches from home. Almost all of them had chicken and rice or pap. I was speechless for a moment as I looked around. I thought back to elementary school lunch time. Some kids went home, some had a lunch and bought milk, some brought their lunch and drink. The lunches were in a lunchbox or paper bag and often consisted of sandwich, fruit, chips, dessert, and juice box or carton of milk. Wow, what a difference. These kids pulled out their falling apart plastic shopping bags with makeshift container (one kid even had a floor polish lid to use as a plate) that contained cold leftovers. When they finished, there was a bucket of water that they could scoop out of to have a drink. These kids’ reality is so different than the reality I grew up in. I snapped out of it and then wondered: after living here for 2 years, why did this catch me so off guard?