Lunch at the Social Welfare Kitchen

There's a second place to eat lunch on our campus, about a 10-minute walk from the academic building and the dorms. As the lunchtime menu in the student/staff cafeteria was becoming a bit predictable, I decided to take lunch at the Social Welfare Kitchen. It's the place where the workers and laborers on our campus eat their meals.

It seems that fewer workplaces in the U.S. have community kitchens where workers share meals together. In America, you pack a lunch and eat your own private food in your office or you hop in your car and drive to a fast-food establishment to scarf down a meal in between errands you can't accomplish at any other time of day. Eating at work has become less of a community exercise and has morphed into separate acts of individualism, except perhaps on the rare holiday when the boss deems it acceptable for everyone to share a few Halloween cookies together. I don't know if I can remember the last U.S. workplace where I shared a meal with my colleagues on a daily basis.

But, in Naryn, workers are provided with a substantial meal and eat together in the Social Welfare Kitchen. For about a dollar, you receive a hot entree, a bowl of soup, three hearty slices of fresh-baked bread, and a steaming cup of tea.  I learned about the Kitchen from one of the Kyrgyz staff who would disappear from our building at noon each day. Curious as to his whereabouts, I asked him where he went. That's when he told me about the special lunch place on the other side of campus.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally went and enjoyed a filling, authentic Kyrgyz lunch at the Social Welfare Kitchen. Perhaps even more enjoyable, was watching everyone sitting together sharing a communal meal, engaged in conversation and laughter. I understand not one word of Kyrgyz, but I didn't need to in order to sense the importance of this meal and the nourishment, to both body and soul, that was received in this humble dining hall.  

People in America can pack virtually anything they want and have their choice of thousands of foods when eating lunch at their jobs. But these cornucopious meals we eat at work are impoverished by the lack of sociability that is often present when consuming them. We seldom realize that there is such poverty among the plenty in our daily lives.

Sadly, the Social Welfare Kitchen will be closing next week as the construction and landscaping on campus will be coming almost to a halt and there will be far fewer workers left to feed. I will continue to eat in the regular university dining hall, which has social virtues of its own, but I will feel a tiny sting of loss that others, I fear, will feel with far greater intensity.

Lining up for lunch

The meal we're served