Under Pressure

It all started with breakfast.

There were several times it started with breakfast, in fact. Breakfast is the meal the that kids themselves are responsible for cooking before the actual cook comes along later in the to make lunch and dinner. It has always been this way and probably always will be because breakfast needs to be started at dawn in order to get everybody fed before they go off to school.

Usually there had been about five or six kids that had made breakfast and just took it upon themselves to get up. I would sometimes if it was particularly cold and I was usually joined by others looking for warmth from the fire. Some days nobody would make breakfast and then there would be no porridge to give out.

However, this last year we went through a month where nobody ate breakfast. This was not our choice, but theirs. You see, they just stopped making breakfast. Since they collectively refused to cook breakfast, they collectively decided to not eat the food they were not cooking. This was rather upsetting to us. It was by most accounts an unsettling combination of laziness and apathy more than a lack of hunger. People still complained of hunger through the morning and we reminded them the easiest solution is to just all pitch in and make breakfast.

After a month we finally came down with an ultimatum. For these kids, them not making breakfast is a huge offense on several levels. First it is insulting to the people who donate to the orphanage, both here in Nampula and abroad. How many of you have told your kids something along the lines of, "Finish your food, there are starving kids in Africa." Second, it is insulting because here all we have to say is, "Finish your food, there are starving kids next door." For our kids to refuse to cook is a huge offense.

As a result of this ultimatum we finally decided to make a schedule of people making breakfast. It works out so that each person has to wake up to boil a pot of water to make porridge, a task taking all of 30 minutes, approximately once a month. That is all it takes if everybody pitches in. Once a month. Boil water.

When we announced the list at a meeting one evening. It was met by groans and whines, but nothing too serious. That was until one girl defiantly raised her hand and announced it would be best to take her of the list because she refuses to cook. This also is a pretty offensive thing to say here, and she said it in on offensive manner to boot. We told her that it meant she would not eat breakfast any of the other morning, a decision she informed everybody she was perfectly fine with.

This girl, to so rudely and publicly announce her decision to not participate in the cooking of breakfast, appeared to be fully prepared to deal with the consequences. It meant she would be going without breakfast the whole month for her refusal to cook it once. It was a choice that apparently would not encumber her that much since she had, after all, been living the last month or so foregoing breakfast the same as everybody else.

What she was completely unprepared for was the tidal wave her decision was about to cause. As happens with with all movements, it really only takes one person to start something. Two years ago a young Tunisian set himself on fire in protest of the government and became the catalyst for the Arab Spring movement. In the south, a young Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, becoming a rallying cry for the civil rights movement of the 1960's. Five hundred years ago monk named Martin Luther once defied the Catholic church, spawning protestantism and an entire religious reformation. Two thousand years ago someone so impacted a group of twelve followers, who themselves so impacted the world that human history is divided into the time of before and after his birth.

So when this girl took a stand and refused to make breakfast (again I stress, only once a month) what resulted was a wave of vitriol against her so great that is caused the same change that so many great movements before it had also affected and caused her to recant. What? You thought there was going to be a mass wave of other kids refusing to cook breakfast? Of course not. This post isn't about great and courageous rebellions. This is about peer pressure.

You see, all it took was one. Not the one that refused to cook breakfast. The one that decided to call her out. One person decided to make their voice heard and declared our young rebel as acting selfish. Then another got the courage to join in. Yes, and she was inconsiderate too. Others added that she is only thinking of herself and not of others. Soon after, it had ballooned in to the whole room rising up against her.

This sounds harsh, but it is. The tough part is that she didn't decide to revoke her decision immediately and let it go several days. They next day she got up like everybody else and went to eat breakfast like everyone else. Unlike everyone else, she was the subject of leers and jeers and anger directed at her being there if she so defiantly refused to cook. Again, I didn't say this was about positive peer pressure.

Peer pressure usually has a negative connotation, but it can be used for good. Are your friends pressuring you clean up your life, get a job, pay the rent on time, stop drinking so much? That's positive peer pressure in my book. Granted, this isn't always brought about the right way. You can negatively pressure people into doing good but in a negative way, like with our reluctant chef. Instead of positively encouraging her to help out and saying how supportive it would be of her, there was nothing bu hate directed at her.

As luck would have it, her slot on the rotation was only three days in. And after three days of literally everybody refusing to talk to her, she had her chance to redeem herself. She woke up, cooked breakfast, and everybody forgave her and all was set right in the world.

This story fortunately has a good ending, but peer pressure is rife here every bit as it is is America. And often it has really negative outcomes. Cliffhanger!!!