Listen to thisIt was a Thursday, my turn to eat supper in Crofts, a cottage with eight or nine adolescents aged 12 to 18 “or thereabouts. It had been a busy afternoon as we were admitting a new young girl into the program, Salba (14), and it just happened that she was to be staying in Crofts. So we would be meeting again soon for supper.
Most of us were extra watchful on the first couple of days, to smooth out the “fitting in" task for new youngsters with the other kids in the cottage.
Dawn, the Child and Youth Care worker on duty in Crofts, briefly welcomed me as the kids clustered around the table, and then, more formally, introduced Salba to the group “although most of them had informally met her during the hour or two since she had arrived. She mentioned that Salba was new to the town as well as being a fairly recent newcomer to the country. She was 14 and would be attending the same school as three or four of the others. The kids responded with their usual blend of welcome, embarrassment, courtesy and awkwardness, but in this group one was usually quite satisfied with even genial indifference.
Salba had been raised in a different world and culture from the other youngsters, one they had no experience of. As the meal was being served, she reached out and took a plate, filling it with food. She then went off to the side, not hiding, just finding a comfortable place, and, curling one leg under her, she folded her left arm in front of herself balancing her elbow on the other knee which she then raised to act as a support. She balanced her plate on the now secure arm, and, moving her face close to the plate, shovelled her food into her mouth “not frantically, just rhythmically and methodically “while watching out over the room. She was relaxed and obviously enjoying the meal. Her eyes danced.
The other kids stared ... I must confess, so did I, not entirely sure as to what would be “the next best thing to do"! It was also clear that we were on one of those cusps of practice, where a situation maintained or lost its control, where one might seize the moment “or everything descended into catastrophe. A glance around the faces showed that some were about to twist in disgust or rejection, others explode in pitiless laughter.
I looked across at Dawn “and learned, as I did so often these days, some object lessons in skilled and sensitive youth care. She had turned through 90 degrees in her seat and was facing Salba. For the benefit of all at the table she mused: “You know, watching Salba eating the way her people do reminds me how very differently people eat. Many African peoples eat with their hands “and I've seen, not just Italian people but others too, eating spaghetti by sucking in huge forkloads. What other ways do people eat?"
"We eat with our hands at a barbeque," said Thomas. “Makes everything taste better too!" The others laughed, with just a hint of residual discomfort.
Dawn came in. “Lots of people in America cut their food up with a knife and fork, then put the knife down at eat the rest of the meal with only a fork."
"My dad eats like that," said Hank. Sometimes I do too, but the rest of my family eat with a knife and fork."
"Some Far Eastern people eat with chopsticks instead of knives and forks," offered Charlene.
"My mom and I tried that with Chinese take-away," said George, “but I was hopeless at it. I would starve to death if I had to eat with chopsticks."
"Maybe that why we eat with our hands!" Everyone laughed at Denise's idea.
Richard had kept firmly out of the conversation. He of all people could be expected to say exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. “And Mexicans," he said enigmatically.
"What about Mexicans?" asked everyone.
"Those things they eat in their hands," he replied.
"Of course," said Dawn. “People often use ways to save having to wash up the knives and forks. Like we eat hot dogs and pies." She turned back to Salba. “Do your people eat in different ways, too, Salba?"
Salba replied lightly: “Sometimes we eat formal, sometimes informal. Sometimes we eat western style, sometimes our way ..."
Charlene remembered something. “We used to live near an Indian family, their children came to our elementary. Sometimes my brother and I went to eat at their house, and their mother didn't even eat with us. She always went into the kitchen while everyone else ate at the meal table. We just got used to it. She cooked great spicy food!"
"Well now," said Dawn. “All that's left to finish off this meal is fruit ... and I don't much mind how you eat it. So long as you clean up after you and put pips and skins and things on this plate when you've finished. Off you all go!"
Dawn and I sat and drank a cup of coffee together. We agreed that for Salba the meal had gone really well, and I told her how much I admired her easy way of dealing with what could have been a rather more uncomfortable situation.
"Just don't you slurp your coffee, now, y'hear?" she warned.
Twenty minutes later I yelled a general goodnight to all who might hear, and left Crofts to walk off home, elevated.
