School holiday is in full swing. That means at time 20+ kids in our yard, wandering around bored, looking for things to do.  Yesterday a bunch of the girls were here asking for my "saucepans". This means any empty containers, spoons and dishes I'm willing to let them pretend with. They play house often and recently they have added playing restaurant. Yesterday they were playing quietly  but then asked if I had any thing to "cut-cut".  This means things that need preparing. Often we use their help to cut vegetables, clean pineapple, grate carrots,  juice passion fruit, etc. Well, I had sweet potatoes to peel, egg plant and tomato to dice and onion to chop.  So I set them to work. Then they asked if they could start a fire to cook it. Their game of pretend quickly turned into the real thing as the boys soon showed up hungry. (During school time the kids often get a meal at school. Just because they are home doesn't mean their parents are any more able to provide that second meal of the day so most of them just eat once a day when school is on break.) I couldn't help but wonder if the parents of 3rd graders in the states are letting them build fires and cook lunch for their siblings in the front yard in the summer.....     

Now, I'm wondering if I shouldn't have been supervising them more. But this is life for these kids. There were no knife injuries, no burns and they were all quite happy to eat what they had prepared. There was no wasted food (no leftovers!) and they even happily did their dishes under the tap outside.