Snacks are treasure

Austin Bat Cave
Sep 5, 2018 · 2 min read

by Kate Caldwell

This past August I volunteered through Girl Forward and Austin Bat Cave with a group of teen girls displaced from their homes by conflict. It wasn’t the easiest of projects — the girls are from countries all over the globe and in the process of learning the fundamentals of English. And we were there to work on poetry, which is fairly abstract and can be difficult even for native speakers (also, perhaps not my creative writing of choice). But everyone, both volunteers and teens, worked together over three days in our allotted hour to mitigate the language barriers and invest in the writing.

The final day, one of the girls in the pair I was working with offered me a Cheeto from her bag. Full confession — I hate Cheetos. I have since I was little. I think that they are gross and pointless. I will murder a bag of Fritos or Nacho Doritos, but I would rather eat NOTHING over a Cheeto. But I took it and I ate it and we laughed, and there was just the tiniest of shifts in how we worked together. She spoke a bit louder and more often, she made jokes, she felt more comfortable.

I realized conscious or not, it was more than a Cheeto. Snacks are treasure — especially for kids. She was offering me a piece of her treasure and there is a fair amount of vulnerability in that act. I didn’t want the Cheeto, but connections are tricky, and I can take a moment of discomfort if it helps create one — something I need to remember more often. Because it’s important to accept treasure when it’s offered to me, even if it’s not my idea of treasure.

Learn more about volunteering opportunities with Austin Bat Cave!

Austin Bat Cave

Austin Bat Cave is a non-profit group dedicated to providing children and teenagers with opportunities to develop their creative and expository writing.

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