Lunch with my colleagues

When I reread what I have written about my experience here in Rwanda, especially about the teachers, I find that I can be too harsh, judgemental and too ethnocentric... To day I do not go home for lunch, as I am waiting for the solar panel technician from Kigali. It is raining hard outside. I am hungry. Catherine, one of the ‘good’ teacher at the school asks: ‘Are you hungry? Do you want to come and have lunch with us? – ‘Yes, I’d love to.
I knew that all the children who come to school get a free lunch provided by PAM (Programme Alimentaire Mondial), financed by the United Nations. I have been told that one of the main reasons for a number of parents to send their children to school is this free meal... It quite possible indeed that without this meal, quite a few children would fall into the ‘malnourished’ category. As for the teachers, I am sure that, financially, it helps them to have one free meal a day as well. The menu is always the same: cassava porridge and red beans. The food is brought in a huge plastic bucket and everyone helps him/herself in his/her plastic plate. The atmosphere in the classroom-turned-into-dining room is convivial. The food is really basic and not unlike what one would expect to serve in a jail. I am sure not too many ‘western teachers’ would find this meal to their culinary standards. And yet, for these teachers, this is normal, this is good. It is a metaphor for their working staple diet, it is a symbol of their harsh working conditions: classes of more than 50 children, 7:00AM to 5:00PM classroom presence, no support staff, no electricity and a salary hardly allowing them to feed their families.
Today as I am eating my red beans and cassava, I feel for them. Part of me wants to cry, parts of me wants to shout, to rebel.. ‘it just ain’t fair!!!” I feel the gap between what I have experienced, working in over privileged teaching conditions and what they go through every day. Do they know better? Yes, they do. Have I been helping them to improve just a little bit their working conditions? I don’t know, but I bloody well hope so!