Lunch!

So, everyday, I eat lunch with the students. The setup is really interesting. Just like the students clean the school themselves, the students set up lunch too. They set out all the trays, serve the food, put it on the trays, get the milk (the drink is always milk – no matter what they’re eating), get the chopsticks, etc. They all wear bandanas and aprons while doing this. I try to help, but I feel like I mostly just get in the way. Kae gave me an apron, but I don’t yet have a bandana. The lunch itself is pretty good – rice usually, some kind of soup, other things I can’t identify… Sometimes there’s some weird stuff I stay away from. Yesterday there was this congealed potato stuff cut into wedges. It didn’t really have a taste, but the texture was a little disturbing. It’s wiggly, like jello, but offers more resistance, like rubber. It doesn’t really break down in your mouth either… It was weird.
After lunch, the kids clean up the place. Uneaten food is dumped back into the empty containers, bowls and plates are stacked, milk bottles put away, tables wiped, etc. The kids are pretty efficient.