The Journey in Haiti Monday January 11th 2010

Today we are going to work with Jeanette she is the head cook for the orphans and works seven days a week making two large meals for them and a snack later in the day. I am excited to show her how to use the cook top burners. We are cooking for about 250 kids today as they have GVMC School for all of the village kids and the orphans. We are going to feed them “feed my starving children” Rice mix and a mix of cereal, marshmallows and dried fruit. Now the lessons begin for me!
First the power goes out, as this is normal I learn later during the day until around 5:30 or so as they are replacing poles or something. Second they use a giant aluminum pot to cook all of the rice in that will not fit on a table top burner. Kind of cool pot though, four big handles, so four people can carry the pot when it is full of rice. We begin to cook the rice packets as the directions state. Some of the help and Jeanette are talking forcefully about the rice. Turns out that they do not like the entire vitamin seasoning packet put in! They said they do not use this! Now we add some oil, a thick margarine substance and more rice to the pot. Jeanette says that tomorrow she will cook the rice and we can learn from her how they like it. We set up a line outside on the patio to serve the food. The ladies have set up hand washing bins for the kids, then they get an x on their hand to try and stop them from coming through again. It is amazing to see the kids try to swarm in for food; we dish up huge portions of rice with the cereal mix for them. They are very careful with the food and sit down and commence to eating. I see some of the big kids stealing food from the little kids! We try to shoo them away, some of the little kids sit behind the serving line by adults to protect their food. Only clean plates and grateful kids are left over. We wash all the Styrofoam plates and plastic cups to re-use the next day. Small kids got everything sanitized.