On Food Parcels and Food Fights

I was going to blog about packing 300 food parcels today for the orphans - consisting of sugar, salt, cooking oil, maize meal, tea, soya mince, soup mix, tinned fish, drink mix, sugar beans and lentils - which will provide food for the orphans for the meals that they don't get at the centre during the week. I was going to write about what it's like to push (okay, try to push) a shopping trolley holding 500 kg. of maize meal (Christo had to actually do it; I couldn't make it budge), and how I think of each orphan that is going to receive these packets, try to imagine what their life must feel like and pray for each one as I pack the parcels. I was going to write about the family members who comes to help pack the parcels to make the work go quicker. I was going to tell you that I really love my job. But then I got into a food fight.

No, not with the orphan parcels, with friends and some empty granadilla halves, which make great projectiles. We were eating dinner, then sitting down to have civilised conversation, getting to know new friends. And then something hit me in the head.

It is hard to be serious when fruit peels are stuck to your face. After the first "shot" was fired, the dining room became a war zone of granadilla halves. I have to say, that while "refined manners" may have been lacking, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time!

I have to wonder if the world should laugh more. If we should "let our guard down" more often, be less "grown up" every now and then and just take delight in... fruit peels. We didn't waste any food, we laughed like crazy, and if we haven't scared off our new friends (who started the food fight, I might add), we somehow grew a little closer through our smiles.

I think that dry spell I just wrote about has ended. I'm somewhat embarrassed to think it was a food fight that did it, but then, I'm still giggling (as I scrub the floors)...