"Eat your food, there's starving kids in Africa."

"Hey Ma, what's for dinner!?" I couldn't tell you how many times I've asked my mom that. I've grown up coming home knowing that there would be food in the fridge and in the cabinets (even when I complain there is nothing after coming home from school!). I can expect my mom to cook on a regular basis, and if she's not cooking I can expect her to leave me materials to prepare food myself. I've always taken that for granted, even when I've been told I shouldn't be. One way of conveying this is the cliche saying that goes something along the lines of "Eat your food, there's starving kids in Africa." Really there are starving kids everywhere, and whether or not I eat my peas is not going to affect those kids' food consumption.

One of my favorite aspects of my school is it feeds the students every day with a warm and nutritious meal. Over this meal today I started talking to a student who is quickly earning a special place in my heart. I will go into more detail on him in a future blog post, for now all you need to know is he lives in an orphanage. Here is the gist of how my conversation with him went:

Me: "So at the orphanage, the feed you, right?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "What do you eat for dinner?"
Him: "Bread and coffee."
Me: (afraid of the answer) "What do you eat for breakfast?"
Him: "Bread and coffee."

Bread and coffee. Can you imagine? Try going to school on that and trying to learn. Try doing any kind of athletic activity on that. Try and just stay awake for an entire day on that. And the thing is, this student isn't the only one in a situation like that. Another student is the skinniest person I have ever seen, legitimately skin and bones. Another student cannot manage to stay awake for the entire school day, and according to him it's not because he is tired. I'm sure this orphanage and the many other children's homes would love to feed their kids more, but such is life in the world that relies so heavily on outside aid. If there is no money, you do what you can to get by. This short glimpse at a much more involved conversation with this student has given me a much greater appreciation, not only for the work my school is doing but also the work the students are doing. It makes me appreciate being forced to eat those peas so many years ago; there really are a lot of starving kids in Africa who would do anything for them.