School Dinners

Here in Corrales the children are full of beans –literally. Today's treat is a Paella starter, with fish to follow, but I bet we'll see some beans tomorrow.

Lunch has three courses: a vegetable starter, which may be soup, green beans cooked with ham pieces or white beans with bits of chorizo, then almost always baked fish and lettuce, occasionally chicken or veal and lettuce, and bread. To finish, there’s fruit or yogurt.

The staff who eat at school, including me, have the same food. The children staying for lunch, who remain at school for afternoon activities, eat in a dining room. I usually go with Olga or another teacher to collect the teachers share from the kitchen. It comes back to the staffroom on a trolley.

Lunch is the time when I get to practise speaking Spanish, when I can get a word in, but there are usually no more than four of us. I still can’t understand much of what’s being said, except in a very general way. Teachers take it in turns to stay on each day and supervise the afternoon sessions.

Enough fuss has been made about English school dinners. Here it's more as I remember it back in the old days - except with more beans.