Snack time!

Today, I arrived to the fourth standard (grade) class* during mid-morning snack time, and my eight students were munching on various crackers, cookies (known as biscuits), and mix (an Indian version of Chex mix) from their small plastic containers. Usually from the students’ excitement, a shrill uproar commences at my arrival to their class, and I have to calm the students down. I thought that my foreigner novelty would wear off after a few months, but my younger students, who are wonderful, are always excited to have me come to class. However, today’s uproar differed than most because the students were pushing each other and thrusting their small snack containers at me.

“Lindsey Auntie, eat snack!”
“No, Lindsey Auntie, eat snack first!”
“Lindsey Auntie, biscuit, my biscuit!”

My fourth standard students were fighting to share their snacks with me, and I initially told them that their parents would want them to eat their snacks. However, everyone insisted on sharing with me, and I crunched on a little bit of mix and pieces of broken biscuit halves with them. One of the shyest students, Shelsa, was sitting alone on her bench, and I noticed that she did not have any snack. I asked why she wasn’t eating, and suddenly, the other seven children started breaking biscuits and giving her handfuls of mix. Truly genuine, these children amaze me because sharing is their first response to anyone with empty hands. In fact, they even fight and shove to share with someone.

Imagine that we lived in a world where sharing and giving were our immediate responses to anyone’s needs. How awesome would that world be! In fact, it even resembles the Kingdom of God and the story when the little boy gives his five small barley loaves and two small fish to Jesus and the disciples to feed the multitude in John 6:1-15.

I love working with youth and children because they teach and convict me through their simplicity and straight forward actions. I can only hope that my fourth standard students continue their spirits of generosity.

*My school is a girls’ boarding school for standards 5-12, but on the same property, a new lower primary day school (from preschool age-4th standard) opened two years ago and has about 42 students, boys and girls. A few of the 2nd-4th standard girls live in the boarding at the larger school. I volunteer at the lower primary school on Monday and Thursday mornings (usually I come after snack time is over), and the lower primary students address me as “Lindsey Auntie.” My older students have a plethora of names for me: Lindsey Auntie, Auntie, Lindsey Kochamma, Kochamma, Lindsey Chechi, Chechi, and occasionally, Lindsey Miss.