Finish your dinner, there are starving children in Africa

I’ve always thought this argument for making kids eat their food was silly. Whether or not you finish your food will make absolutely no difference to the starving children in Africa. They will remain starving and you will either gain weight or create more trash.

Enjoying  chistorra with my sisters in San Sebastian

This holiday season, I was lucky enough spend some time with my family in San Sebastian, Spain. Although the absence of my Abuelo Daniel was hard felt and difficult, I really cannot describe how wonderful it was to be with my parents, my sisters, aunts, and cousin, who I hadn’t seen in over a year! Of course eating jamon Serrano, enjoying three hour lunches at Barkaiztegi, and bar hopping for tapas around the Parte Vieja weren’t so bad either.

I have been told time and time again: the most difficult part of a volunteer’s Peace Corps experience is coming home. Instead of suffering from stress about un-sanitized meat and the swarm of people following you everywhere; you have panic attacks about the ridiculously large selection of cereals on isle 14 and why your Applebees order took five minutes, not three hours-- things that before a short two years in Peace Corps, were normal. 

My visit to Spain was too short to really deal with reverse-culture shock. Mostly, I just filled myself with good food, enjoyed family time and western plumbing. I was, however, seriously thrown off by one thing: kids and their rude, spoiled, habits.

Now I have said this before, and I will say it again: I’m not the most kid-friendly person. Africa has made me much, much better at interacting with kids. In fact, after a year here I really thought I was starting to like them, maybe want some of my own one day. Then I went to Spain.

Suddenly, I was yelling at my seven year old cousin: “Do you know, every day, I work with children your age who have nothing to eat? NOTHING! They spend their days carrying 20 liter water jugs on their head! They don’t complain! Do you understand how lucky you are? Eat your delicious fish! It’s delicious! What is wrong with you?! Behave yourself!”.

My cousin was seriously confused. It was unrealistic and rude of me to expect her to understand the hardships of children on a different continent who share nothing in common with her other than age. For a second, her inability to comprehend the struggles of my young Rwandan neighbors infuriated me.

In reality, I hope my cousin will never experience the hunger or strife suffered by the children I work with. But I do hope that she, and all the other picky eaters in this world, will in some way appreciate their luck. The luxury of walking through a grocery store with isles, the ability to be picky, to refuse food and not be hungry: this makes you part of a very, very small percentage of this world.

So I guess I did go through a bit of reverse culture shock. I don’t think you should finish your dinner just because my neighbors in Africa are starving, but maybe don’t complain about getting baked potatoes instead of mashed, regular instead of diet. Take a deep breath, enjoy the variety and the abundance. Life is good.