“Packed lunch” trauma
The other day, I was having a conversation with some friends that took me back in the day in Memoire style. We were talking about the packed lunch trauma that those of us whose parents could not afford to buy “hot lunch” or swing you money for chips in primary school underwent (another devastating one was wearing a home-knitted sweater, thankfully my mother could not knit :-)).
See packed lunch for many us did not involve cute deli sandwiches with a ka-fruit etc. packed lunch was leftovers, so if guys had githeri or ugali for dinner that was your packed lunch. Sometimes there were some weird but popular with the group combos like rice and baked beans, but I still remember some dodgy combos especially when things were tight with the domestic budget that made it straight to the dustbin because I didn’t want to look uncool (kids are mean, what can I say). To make matters worse it was in a ka-flask typically with the carb (e.g. rice) on the bottom and the stew on the top, then you had to find a way to extract both from the flask in a non-messy way. Remember those?
I had the double “tragedy” of those flasks with a glass interior, which on top of being way uncool were so easy to break, and so you had to spend a lot of time protecting it lest you face the wrath of your mother who would not cease to remind you just how expensive the flask that you destroyed was (and to drive home the point subject you to cold packed lunch until she could ostensibly afford a new flask). Oh one more thing, at my primary school most of the students were in the school lunch/chips buying variety so even more trauma. The only cool thing about packed lunch for me was that I had an A-team lunch box that my mum had picked up at those auctions that expats who are leaving have in Kenya.
By standard five, I came to the conclusion that the situation was no longer tenable (with the onset of pre-teen angst and all). Unbeknown to my folks, I’d been relying on scrounged money (like when a rela slides you a twenty-bob) to break up the monotony as often as I could (much to the joy of the birds who fed on my packed lunch) but that could only go so far. So I negotiated a deal with my Swa teacher. See teachers at my school could get hot lunch at a very discounted rate and the amount they got was sufficient for me and my small sis. I convinced the teacher to get the lunch for us (she used to have to smuggle it to me, since that was a big no-no) and then convinced my parents that the plan was affordable + and we got to eat healthy food (they had began to suspect that the packed lunch never made it to our stomachs).
Anyway, just thought I’d share….any packed lunch stories of your own? combos you dreaded? Please drop a comment.
And for those of you who are wondering why I haven’t blogged about the latest outrage by Kenyan MPs. It’s become a case of same shit, different day and I really have nothing more to say.
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