When I arrived in Seoul last week, I came with the idea that I would be working to increase sustainability at the soup kitchen where I am volunteering. However, after arriving, I soon realised that the DAIL foundation was not letting a single bit of food go to waste. Using vegetable roots and meat cast-offs to make soup broths, using leaf stems in huge batches of kimchi, the chefs in the DAIL kitchen made sure all parts of plants and animal were used to their fullest degree. 

I would also be shocked by the ginormity of the scale of operation. Having volunteered at a food bank in Leeds, if we had over 200 meals to serve it was considered a busy day. Here, 1000 meals served is the average, all complete with a serving of soup, rice, and banchan. It is extremely regimented with at least 20 volunteers working at full pace all the time whilst 200 litre pots of soup boil constantly. It is safe to say the DAIL foundation has their soup kitchen operating down to a science. 

This left me stumped as to what my purpose here was. Having realised my initial idea was fruitless here as all my ideas were already in practice, I had to find an explored avenue. Luckily, this did not take long. Whilst washing buckets full of spring onions, I was approached by somebody asking if I was American. Soon after, we started discussing where I was from in the UK and whereabouts he lived in Seoul. As I was pulled away from my job to begin service, he thanked me for the conversation and told me it was the first time he had spoken to somebody in a week. This shocked me, despite the dining rooms holding at least a hundred people, there was little conversation happening. When I queried a member of staff as to why the dining area was so quiet, I was told that many of them don't enjoy conversing with one another as they don't wish to discuss their current lives and also because a lot of them are just too tired. 

The soup kitchen serves both breakfast and lunch, with most people staying in between to ensure a seat. This leaves them about three to four hours of sitting down waiting for food. Most choose to sleep with their heads down on the table and some sit in their suits waiting for a phone call for a job interview. No matter how they wait, they all do it in silence. The news plays in the background, but with the current news cycle focusing on the South Korean stock market crashing, it's hardly providing a positive atmosphere. 

Therefore, my new objective has become clear; I will be focusing on implementing a better environment for those using the soup kitchen. How this manifests itself is unclear yet, but in a country with few mental health resources and a high suicide rate, I feel it is important to focus on this area of wellbeing.