I like
to eat my lunch alone in the staff room.
Sometimes, I’ll even eat up to an
hour early, just so I can sit in the cold, dark silence in the concrete
solitude, peacefully reading my magazine and digging into my pasta salad. Just so I can be completely alone.
I’m not
an antisocial person by any means. I
especially love dinner parties, cooking for a large group of people and
enjoying a family-style meal around a loud, busy, crowded table. I usually hate cooking by myself, because I
always end up preparing too much. The
longer I’ve been in Lesotho, the less exciting my meals have gotten. For example, I’m boiling some water right now
to mix together one of those 100-calorie Knorr soup packets. It’s not much fun when you whip together an
extravagant, delicious meal and have no one to share it with. I’ve literally talked out loud complimenting
myself on a fantastic enchilada dinner because no one was in the room to share
in my delight.
But
school lunches are an entirely different story.
I love to eat alone for that magical
lunch hour. I used to wonder why I
craved that escape at 11am from the rest of the school. I almost felt guilty, because most of the
teachers convene in the first grade classroom around lunchtime to eat
together. But now and then, some
teachers strayed behind in their classrooms to mark papers, which persuaded me
that it was acceptable to run away and hide for an hour.
After
some lunchtime soul-searching, I realized why I like to be alone so much for my
meal. When I started at this particular
school, the principal insisted on my packing my own lunches everyday (which I
thought was strange, since all primary schools are served free lunches,
including the teachers, and at my other school I am usually served just like
everyone else). When I asked why, she acted
embarrassed and basically said that the food was crappy. I didn’t ask any more questions.
But
when I started showing up to school with my usual favorites—pasta, peanut
butter and banana sandwiches, rice and vegetables with soy sauce, mixed green salads—I
was immediately the center of attention as soon as I pulled out my Tupperware
container. Everyone leaned in to see
what the American white girl had brought to school that day. They stared.
They smelled. They touched (so
gross). And they always wanted a taste.
After my lunchbox made its usual rounds around the room, I had a
quarter-sized amount left of what I had packed.
And yeah, I’ll go ahead and say it—when lunchtime rolls around, I’m
hungry! I’m ready to eat! And I’m not ready to give away the majority
of what I had looked forward to for that particular lunchtime!
Basotho
culture is super into sharing. If you
have something, you give it away. Or as
much as you can without going hungry/going broke yourself. My supervisor warned me of this immediately
on the day I moved into my village. I’ll
never forget her saying, “now don’t be surprised if people come over and ask
you for things! They’ll see all of your
boxes of stuff. We Basotho, we share!”
I don’t
think I’m bad at sharing. I’m the oldest
child, so it might have been harder for me to learn to share at first. But I can share. I like to share… usually. I’m working on it. On occasion, I’ll bake brownies, or tortilla
chips, or cookies, and bring them to school to share with my teachers. It’s a good cross-cultural kind of thing; I
explain to them what it is I’ve cooked, they usually don’t like it, but will
compliment me on my cooking abilities and then make a suggestion for the next
time (“Ausi, there is too much sugar in these cookies!”).
But for
now, I’m still eating lunch alone in the teacher’s lounge. I thoroughly enjoyed my egg salad sandwich
today while reading People magazine. I’m
not sure how well egg salad would have gone down with my Basotho
counterparts. But I enjoyed it, and I
didn’t have to share one bit. J
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