Food at Bosco Boys is a three-tier system. 1. The priests and actual brothers; 2. The pre-novices; 3. The boys (or boys/girls at the school Mon-Fri for breakfast and lunch).
Us volunteers are invited to eat with the pre-novice brothers, although recently I have gone to eat with the boys in the dining hall a few times.
For them, breakfast consists of tea (chai) with bread. I was pleasantly surprised to fiund that not all the bread was stale, as I had been warned that it would be, and it was also pleasing to see the boys apparently sharing the food around relatively equally, making sure that everyone gets their share. Having said that, as everything happens so fast, so noisily and so obstinately in Kiswahili, I have no idea as to the true nature of the dining hall politics...
A typical lunch or supper is ugali with cooked vegetables (generally French beans and/or carrots) with a suggestion of a sauce. The ugali is pure stodge and only really palatable when eaten in combination with the other food.
By way of contrast, in the relative peace and quiet of the pre-novice house, the brothers tuck into bread and butter in the mornings with tea (sugar is available if you like) or sometimes porridge. Lunch/supper (and sometimes breakfast too) always features rice and almost always kidney beans with some kind of veg. Yoghurt and mango are popular post-prandial treats. Only occasionally do we have meat.
The food might not sound too thrilling so I should add that I've never felt excessively hungry since I arrived and there's always more than enough bread or rice to keep one going until the next meal. Given my Salesian background, I can't help but think that we ought to be sharing our mealtimes with the boys and I'm often tempted by the idea of joining them for meals more often. Sadly, my stomach often wins out and I end up enjoying my rice and beans with the brothers instead... :)
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