NPR Link The food people eat and the ways in which they serve and celebrate this food reveal a great deal about their culture, the local environment, and their relations with other places. Guatemala: The Mendozas of Todos Santos Food expenditure for one week: 573 Quetzales or US$75.70 Family Recipe: Turkey Stew and Susana Perez Matias's Sheep Soup The Matsuda family: Yomitan Village, Okinawa, Japan. Takeo Matsuda, 88, and his wife Keiko, 75, Takeos mother, Kama, 100. Food expenditure for one week: $ USD Japan: The Ukita family of Kodaira City Food expenditure for one week: 37,699 Yen or $ Favorite foods: sashimi, fruit, cake, potato chips Italy: The Manzo family of Sicily Food expenditure for one week: Euros or $ Favorite foods: fish, pasta with ragu, hot dogs, frozen fish sticks Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23 Favorite foods: soup with fresh sheep meat Kuwait: The Al Haggan family of Kuwait City Food expenditure for one week: dinar or $ Family recipe: Chicken biryani with basmati rice United States: The Revis family of North Carolina Food expenditure for one week: $ Favorite foods: spaghetti, potatoes, sesame chicken Mexico: The Casales family of Cuernavaca Food expenditure for one week: 1, Mexican Pesos or $ Favorite foods: pizza, crab, pasta, chicken China: The Dong family of Beijing Food expenditure for one week: 1, Yuan or $ Favorite foods: fried shredded pork with sweet and sour sauce Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo Food expenditure for one week: Egyptian Pounds or $68.53 Family recipe: Okra and mutton Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo Food expenditure for one week: $31.55 Family recipe: Potato soup with cabbage United States: The Caven family of California Food expenditure for one week: $ Favorite foods: beef stew, berry yogurt sundae, clam chowder, ice cream Mongolia: The Batsuuri family of Ulaanbaatar Food expenditure for one week: 41, togrogs or $40.02 Family recipe: Mutton dumplings Great Britain: The Bainton family of Cllingbourne Ducis Food expenditure for one week: British Pounds or $ Favorite foods: avocado, mayonnaise sandwich, prawn cocktail, chocolate fudge cake with cream Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village Food expenditure for one week: ngultrum or $5.03 Family recipe: Mushroom, cheese and pork Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide Food expenditure for one week: Euros or $ Favorite foods: fried potatoes with onions, bacon and herring, fried noodles with eggs and cheese, pizza, vanilla pudding Mali: The Natomos of Kouakourou Food expenditure for one week: 17,670 francs or US$26.39 Family Recipe: Natomo Family Rice Dish Quiet at the back: classrooms around the world in pictures From the Russian pupils in Prada to the Nigerian children who sit four to a desk, photographer Julian Germain takes us on a journey around the world's classrooms From: The Guardian, September 14, schools-around-the-world-children Fertility rate (births per woman) 1.9 Primary age children not in school 5% Life expectancy at birth 73 Youth (15-24) literacy 97.8% Population on less than $2 a day 10% This was a typical school for working-class kids. Anybody who has money in Brazil sends their kids to private school. These kids lived in the favela and were very poor. There wasnt an abundance of books and bags in the class. It was under-resourced, and its hard for any child at a school like this to go to university. School Escola Estadual Nossa Senhora do Belo Ramo, Belo Horizonte, Brazil Fertility rate 1.4 Life expectancy at birth 80 Population on less than $2 a day 0% Primary age children not in school 16% Youth literacy 99.1% This is whats known as a real school. These kids were very relaxed and bright. I think they look quite grown up, and theyre definitely cool without being stroppy. Youve got the boy in the cool scarf, the girl in the fashionable Vans; and you can see that the school has commissioned a graffiti artist to decorate the classroom. Youth culture is a part of the fabric of the building. There was a party going on in a nearby classroom, and the teachers and parents were partying with the kids. School Agnes-Miegl-Realschule, Dsseldorf, Germany Fertility rate 5.3 Life expectancy at birth 65 Population on less than $2 a day Data not available Primary age children not in school 22% Youth literacy 84.1% This is the whole school in the picture. It was a one-room primary school in a tiny village in a mountainous, largely agricultural region of Yemen. The views out of the windows were spectacular. We had to use 100m of cables to work my lights because there was no electricity. I guess that the kids were between five and 12, although some might even have been younger. Small rural schools such as this were more relaxed about boys and girls being taught together. The older kids were helping to teach the younger ones. School Al Ishraq Primary, Akamat Al Megab, Yemen This school really reflected the reality of downtown St Louis, which is that its black. The district was extraordinary like pictures I had seen of Detroit. You could drive through block after block of houses that were almost falling down. The school was a large, fairly old and traditional building, but the headmaster was very enthusiastic and I got a sense that the kids and teachers got on well. This was a proper lesson. It was geometry and it was way over my head. I visited a few state schools in this district of St Louis, and the only one that had more than a handful of any white students at all was the Gifted and Talented school. School Beaumont High School, St Louis, MissouriFertility rate 2 Life expectancy at birth 78 Population on less than $2 a day 0% Primary age children not in school 3% Youth literacy 99.7% Fertility rate 2.5 Life expectancy at birth 74 Population on less than $2 a day 15% Primary age children not in school 3% Youth literacy 97.4% It took us four hours in a wagon to reach Tiracanchi. Its a tiny village in the mountains, and 25% of the kids spoke only Quechua, the native language. They were very timid and quiet; 82% of their fathers were farmers or stockmen, and only 46% had electricity at home. The biggest problem here was teachers none of the local population is educated enough to teach, and none of the teachers from the cities wants to live in this very remote place earning very little money. It really felt like being in another world. School Escolar Secundaria Tiracanchi, Peru Fertility rate 2.3 Life expectancy at birth 68 Population on less than $2 a day 81% Primary age children not in school 27% Youth literacy 75.5% Even though it looks it, this wasnt a military school. It was just their uniform, but it was definitely one that would instil pride. The school was very strict and regimented, and the boys were taught by rote. They asked me lots of questions about what I thought of their country, whether I thought it was nice, whether I thought it was poor. They were very ambitious, believed that school was an important opportunity, and they wanted to do something with their lives and planned to study on. They saw themselves as potential lawyers and doctors. School Jessore Zilla School, Jessore, Bangladesh Life expectancy at birth 51 Population on less than $2 a day 84% Primary age children not in school 38% Youth literacy 71.2% There were probably 60 kids in this class, but others had closer to 90. Some classrooms were more like outdoor rooms with a roof. I saw lessons being taught there, but they wouldnt let me photograph them. They were very sensitive about it. They wanted me to photograph this room, which had been recently decorated. Having said that, its still authentic. It was fascinating to see that the energy companies had donated desks. And the kids just about managed to park their bums on a bench, but they were three or four to a desk. School Kuramo Junior College, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria Gambella is a small village about 420km outside of Addis Ababa. It had rained, so our car couldnt get all the way and we had to walk the last couple of miles through the most beautiful landscape. The school was incredibly basic, and two of the teachers hadnt shown up that day. In a school of only five classes, that wasnt great. Having said that, a lot of the kids do go on to secondary school, where students I saw were being taught the laws of thermodynamics. The pupils I met at this primary school were all very enthusiastic and keen to show me their handwriting. In this part of Ethiopia at least, being a teacher is highly respected. Fertility rate 4.4 Life expectancy at birth 58 Population on less than $2 a day 78% Primary age children not in school 17% Youth literacy 44.6% School Gambella Elementary School, Gambella, Ethiopia This was totally unexpected. The students had lunch together in the classroom with their teacher, which was a very nice and social thing. Then they all sat down at their desks and had a nap for 30 minutes. It was like a lesson set aside just for napping. Its so ingrained in their culture that they did actually fall asleep. Afterwards, they had 10 minutes fresh air in the yard, then restarted lessons. Fertility rate 0.9 Life expectancy at birth 72 Population on less than $2 a day 0% Primary age children not in school Data not available Youth literacy Data not available School Min-sheng Junior High School, Taipei, Taiwan Russia takes education very seriously, and these were very ambitious kids. Every single one of them would be going to university. They already had the power high heels on, and the chic designer suits. They werent wearing Nike trainers here it was more about Gucci and Prada. This class looked more like it was made up of business people than students. Fertility rate 1.5 Life expectancy at birth 69 Population on less than $2 a day 0% Primary age children not in school 4% Youth literacy 99.7% School School No 63, Kalininsky District, St Petersburg, Russia Cuba is renowned for its excellent education system, despite its poverty. In every country Ive gone to Ive seen pictures of historical, cultural and religious figures, but Cuba took this to a new level. You see posters of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and his brother (here in the background). They almost became the dominant feature of my entire set of pictures from Cuba, because they are always there. School Escuela Primaria Angela Landa, Old Havana, Cuba Fertility rate 1.5 Life expectancy at birth 79 Population on less than $2 a day 0% Primary age children not in school 5% Youth literacy 100% Heres what school lunch looks like in 13 countries around the world (Business Insider)around-the-world ?op=1