A Bowl With a Lid
Listen to Mark’s AudioChronicle
Lunch becomes dinner.
One of the first times I was in a school with our feeding program, I noticed that a couple children weren’t eating their meal. I asked the teacher standing next to me, “Do they not like the githeri?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “They do like it. But a student will not eat their lunch if their younger brother or sister is at home and has no food to eat. Those children will save their meal and take it home to share with their siblings.”
Food is for the learner.
As I talked with the head teacher in another school, this subject came up again. He wasn’t particularly happy about students sharing their lunches at home. He kept saying, “The food is for the learner. The learner should be eating the food so that they can do better in school and learn more.”
And then he recounted the story of the day he’d decided to put an end to this practice. He observed a girl covering a full bowl of githeri, and he marched over and began to scold her. “The food is for the learner,” he said. “You are the learner. You should be eating this food.”
The girl looked up at him, her gaze imploring. “But my brother,” was all she said.
And he told me, “What could I do? What could I say?” So he agreed that she and her classmates could save their lunches to share with their siblings.
A bowl with a lid.
At Kenya Kids Can, one of the things we often say is that everyone has a vital role to play. The school has a role to play: they hire the cook, build the kitchen, cook the food, and serve each meal. The supporters have a role to play: they donate money to buy the maize and beans. And the children have a role to play: each student brings a bowl to school in order to receive their lunch.
Sometimes a student doesn’t have a bowl, or it’s lost or stolen or forgotten. So they ask a friend if they can borrow their lid, and that lid becomes a bowl.
And often the very same lid, returned to the giver, will cover a bowl of githeri as it makes the journey home after school to feed a smaller sibling.
How many are fed with just one bowl of githeri?
Last school year, we served three million meals to more than 16,000 children, but that’s not the end of the story. With all of the take-home, multiplied meals, we likely fed thousands more. While we can’t track the exact number of kids, we do know meal sharing is a daily ritual for many of our students.
Warm maize and beans—served in a bowl with a lid. Only God knows for certain how far these meals reach, and you make that possible with your gift this month.
Thank you for filling so many bowls and small stomachs. Kenya Kids Can, because of you.
Mark Daubenmier
Director of Kenya Kids Can
Drought leaves children without their parents and food.
Watch the story.