Chai time

Chai is a very popular drink here. It is served to students at morning and afternoon break and students are most put out if they have to miss it! It is a very sweet, normally milky tea, brewed over the school kitchen’s fire. As teachers, we have it brought to us in thermos flasks. I’m adjusting to the sugar…it doesn’t seem as refreshing as tea without sugar. Quite a lot of time is spent sitting outside of the classroom like this and is I am still getting used to the pace of life, even at school, where noone is in a hurry. Relationships, not time or tasks, are what is important.

In many of the local go’obs (villages), chai will be all that is taken at breakfast and lunch, with goat or camel milk. If the animals are far away then there may not be any milk available and it will be drunk black.