Ducks @ Oregon - University of Oregon

Prison Food

Katie D.

August 10, 2009 - 10:00 PM

The first time we ate at Greaterford prison, it was the sack lunches that the inmates are fed when they aren't able to go to the cafeteria because of some other program or time commitment. Sack lunch: four slices of white bread made into two sandwiches with a slice of processed cheese and turkey bologna each, a carton of milk, and an apple. I guess it could be worse.

As much of a learning experience as that was, it was our second meal together in the Inside-Out Training portion taught at Graterford prison that was more challenging, more illuminating.

Let me back track just the slightest bit. I'm talking about the training program I attended that is for professors interested in being Inside-Out instructors. The Inside-Out Program is a national program that takes college classes into prisons. They have a distinct and purposeful set of pedagogical methods, dialogue techniques, and ideology. The training programs, which are held every summer, are designed to teach future class instructors how to conduct the classes, among many other things. I was there as an undergraduate, participating because of my plans for an undergraduate honors thesis on the topic of pedagogical (educational) techniques for intergroup dialogue, using Inside-Out methods as a case-study for a successful program.

All that to say, I am someone who is deeply invested in education as a way to change the world. My experience in Inside-Out classrooms is that my entire world view was challenged, my perspectives deepened, and my capacity for relating to my fellow human beings was fundamentally changed. Education can do that, under the right circumstances. The Inside-Out Program does that, according to the testimony of hundreds of program graduates.

This serves as background to that second meal.

By the second day of training at Graterford at the end of the week, I was in an emotional state of both complete exhaustion and exhilaration. I was inspired. I was drained. I was ready to have the "inside" members of the training program help me develop a better understanding of the program. I was there to learn, and to bring that knowledge out into the world.

The first meal together, on Wednesday, was what you would expect: good conversations happening over and around uninspiring food.

But Saturday was different. On Saturday there were snacks available. Even before lunch, there were bags of chips and cookies open, inviting us to keep our energy up with some snack food.

When lunch itself arrived, we were served Chi-Chis. This is apparently pretty standard prison fare: it's one of the only things that prison inmates can cook for themselves. It is made with Ramen noodles, cheese, onions and other vegetables, and some type of canned meat like tuna or sausage. It was delicious. Truly. One of our classmates, the Cook himself, scooped a big portion up for me, using a plastic cup for a scoop, and a plastic trash back for a container of the Chi-Chis. It was not elaborate. It was not high cuisine. But it was delicious. Filling, and warm.

So here's where it gets hard. Most of the men in the Think Tank (the Inside program trainers) make about $0.35 an hour working in the prison industries: making work boots, sewing uniforms, or cleaning and maintaining the facility. They worked long and hard for that money. And here we were, eating snacks and Chi-Chis purchased out of the Commissary, the Prison's General Store. The Inside program trainers had pooled their money (with no help from the trainees or the Inside-Out Program) and had made us lunch. They fed us.

Let me confess to something very serious now. I am someone who works to feed people who need the help. I am not someone who is used to being fed.

It was a fabulous meal. I spent the time talking to one of the Think Tank members, who had a lot to tell me about Inside-Out philosophy, his experience in the program, and his life experiences in general. We dialogued, we connected. Why, then, was I uncomfortable that he was feeding me?

Volunteers and activists can easily become patronizing. We can fall into the perpetuation of hierarchies even as we try to work to end these structures. I like to think that these things do not apply to me. And yet there I was, fundamentally affected by the extravagant generosity and sacrifice represented in that meal.

It is important to remember to always be humble, to exist as equal to every person around us. To not create roles that separate servants and served in any extension of those terms.

I gratefully accepted their instructions and their food. I listened to their stories and told my own. I confessed my fears about someday teaching a class and finding myself inadequate. I faced a self-limitation that I was allowing to come between myself and all I was capable of. I realized that I had a long way to go to achieve many of the ideologies I thought I held.

There is something essential and transformative in breaking bread together. In this case, it was delicious, goopy, noodle Chi-Chis. It was letting go of my place as a giver, and allowing myself to receive someone else's kindness.

I started to describe this as a humbling experience. But really, that's just the first step. I need to look my pride in the face. Then allow a good deed to uplift me: to feel the sincere kindness of another. Eat the food, dialogue profoundly. Accept transformation.

All that in a prison lunch.