09:30 Jan 17 

Well done indeed! I would say that these are, functionally speaking, food hampers. In concrete terms, they are large red plastic bowls containing food. They look just like the kind of thing you'd use to wash clothes in, so "batea" is being used in its Peruvian sense (you'd never call these things "bateas" in Spain). Now it's up to William to decide what he wants to call them.

08:30 Jan 17 

Well done!!

08:12 Jan 17 

in this photo gallery in the third row down of photos, on the right there is a girl pupil accepting a batea and to the left of it there is a photo of all the bateas arranged in the school hall waiting to be presented to the pupils. I would call these "food hampers", anyone got other suggestions?
http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com.pe/voluntarios/galeria.a...

I found these thanks to your Discussion entry of just now Lu, thanks so much. The standard of research by everyone on this question is extremely high, congratulations to you all.

10:14 Jan 16 

On the Linguee website showing paired translations (http://www.linguee.es/ingles-espanol/traduccion/staple food....
I found the following:
"The receiver pan has a staple food capacity of 200 kg and it is built in AISI 304 stainless steel with electro polishing.
"La batea receptora tiene capacidad para 200 kg de materia prima y está construida en acero inoxidable calidad AISI [...]
chiacchiera.com.ar"
Since the llink is from Argentina, the English is probably a translation, but in any case we know that they hold 200 kg and are made of stainless steel (galvanized?) - not something you would hand out to children.
Maybe 'steel tubs'? That's what I've changed my answer to.

09:50 Jan 16 

While I understand that William has to protect client confidentiality, if you google the sentence you can have a good idea of the context.
I understand what you mean about containers, Muriel, thanks for that input.
When I was a child, "bateas" was used fairly often by older people or people from the provinces in much the same sense as Charles has described.
And what I read in that link I copied is that instead of giving the gifts of food in bags or baskets, the food was packed in these plastic tubs.

23:16 Jan 15 

That's exactly what I'm thinking - because 70 gifts to individuals is a low number to be writing a press release about in the food aid business. What about all the other kids in the schools? I hesitated to say 'containers' because that could be construed to mean shipping containers, which are enormous. I'm imagining that the package is the size of a standard food aid carton, and that 70 of them were split up and given to a much larger number of kids to take home.

22:33 Jan 15 

about your first comment -- are you thinking the bateas are standard packs and the food supplies in them were broken up and repackaged as enough gifts to go around all the children? Perhaps "batea-type containers" would be an option that covers that possibility

22:20 Jan 15 

While I still stand by my reading of the text, in which it may not have been individual students who received the gift, in any case, even though "bateas" has special significance, I think it's better to go with 'baskets' or 'gifts'. Baskets can be any size, and the word is also used metaphorically in connection with food aid.

13:25 Jan 15 

How about calling them "plastic containers filled with staple food items"?

12:07 Jan 15 

"Food baskets" maybe but we run the same risk of a (predantic or otherwise) criticism that "they're not really baskets"
The container seems to be of secondary importance - imagine a flood or some such disaster in Europe. The Red Cross or whoever airdrop tupperware containers with essential food and water and so on. Yes, those containers would be useful at a later point but...
If this NGO had given a load of empty buckets or tubs or whatever to these kids I'm sure they would have been received with confux¡sed expressions :o)

11:32 Jan 15 

I'm inclined to agree with Lucía. Tempting though it is to sidestep the problem of what the "bateas" actually are, I think something significant would be lost. "Batea" is such a standard and traditional term in Peru that I think they must be the kind of tubs or bowls (traditionally made of wood but nowadays of plastic) that Peruvians use for a variety of purposes, mainly washing, as illustrated in Lucía's references. They would be practical containers, and, as I have suggested, would remain useful to the families after the food had been eaten.

11:13 Jan 15 

I agree with Deborah and Charles, and if you read one of the links I provided in this discussion, the person says that traditional end-of-the-year baskets have been substituted (for the group of people he's talking about) by gifts packed into the kind of tubs people use to wash clothes or their feet.

10:28 Jan 15 

Your suggestion is better than my ideas however - post "gifts of staple rations" as an answer please!

09:59 Jan 15 

For all the reasons that you mention, william, and since there were only 70 of them, and they were shipped, it doesn't make sense to me that they would be small. The text doesn't imply that each child was given a little tray or basket of food - that doesn't make sense to me.

08:46 Jan 15 

an NGO will necessarily have an environmental policy on the reduction, recycling and reuse of packaging materials; in this case you are suggesting the gift container is made of durable materials and designed to be reused, so it does make sense

08:35 Jan 15 

If these were Peruvian "bateas", which are useful household items, maybe they were part of the gift!

07:32 Jan 15 

that the NGO may have selected and packaged the contents itself to look like a gift, so they wouldn't necessarily be in standard containers. They may have been quite small to suit the age of the children and the perhaps symbolic nature of the gift. Can we get around this problem altogether not specifying the containers and putting "they made 70 gifts of staple rations to the pupils"?

23:58 Jan 14 

So they must be fairly large - bigger than a bowl or tray. I looked for images under "food aid" and the only alternative to sacks is cardboard cartons. I can't think of another practical way to ship food.

14:16 Jan 14 

I just tried a Google search>images
batea site:.pe
and I get this kind of image:
http://blogs.elcomercio.pe/santalima/2007/12/la-canasta-esta...
http://www.unomasuno.pe/bateas-tinas/391-batea-25-ola-ola.ht...

12:07 Jan 14 

Many different views here on what "bateas" are, and I must admit I'm confused. I don't know whether the word is being used in its specifically Peruvian sense, but if it is, the following may be of interest. It suggests something like a tub to me, and seems to indicate that in Peru "batea" doesn't really mean a tray:

http://academiaperuanadelalengua.org/peruanismos/batea