School dinners

Over seven hundred children and young people from Tirrim Primary and Tirrim Secondary School get free school dinners, thanks to donations of Samaritans Purse Canada. TSS students, the majority of whom board, also get supper and breakfast. And, of course, chai at morning and afternoon breaktime.
 
All food preparation is done by hand  - here they are sorting beans and chopping cabbage.  

Most staff work two weeks on, two off, so that they can return to their villages and maintain many of their traditional ways of life.

 
Cooking is done in big pots called sufurias over open fires (see the wood store on the right?)

Meals at lunchtime alternate between githeri (maize and beans) and rice and beans. Sometimes with a soupy sauce and sometimes, like today, with vegetables. Children sit outside to eat. These children are in the shade of a tree. It is customary to use fingers for eating.  

 

Some of the older girls found a bench. 

 
Food is brought to the teachers. Me and Mr Eric ate our rice and beans in our office.

 

Washing up at the end of it all...