The Charity Trip

THREE: Kitchen Do's and Kitchen Don't's

Felicity Sage:

God, what is that irksome noise?

I groggily open my eyes and begrudgingly get up. I wipe my crusty eyes before checking the clock which read 5:02 a.m. I look around my surroundings and see my hut mates yawning and wishing they were asleep.

The trumpet continues to play for three minutes before abruptly stopping. I am tempted to go back to sleep but went against it. I have around two hours before I have to report for duty in the kitchen. Seems to me that this refugee camp is more like summer camp.

I take a quick three minute shower and do my morning routine (brush my teeth, get dressed, and pee). I peek through the opening of the tent and see that the sky is barely lit. I go back inside and grab one of the books I brought and read for the next hour/hour and a half.

By this time, the camp was in full gear. Ashley (the hut mate that was 'banging' Hayden) finally comes out of the bathroom after thirty minutes...wearing makeup?!

Dafuq?!

I swear some of these girls are here for Hayden and will be of no help.

Why don't you all go home and stop wasting our resources?

-----

6:55 a.m.

I begin walking towards the kitchen tent, taking in the beautiful scenery around us.

"-ond and I will be your supervisor this week," says a voice. I climb through the opening flap of the tent.

"On the board by the sink, there's a list of names. Please find yours and report to that part of kitchen. As I begin to walk over to the board, I make myself familiar to the people I will be working with. It was a pretty small group: around 7-9 people. And the tent was pretty small as well, just enough space to fit a gas burners, piles on top of piles of rice, and enormous pots and wooden stirring spoons. I mean seriously, I never knew kitchen utensils could be huge!

I walk over to the board and read through the short list of names:

Aniso D. - Head Chef

Felicity S. - Pot Cleaning

Dory R. - Rice Cooking

Hmm... Pot cleaning, that's not that bad. Of course, on the volunteer application I made it pretty clear that I can't cook.

"Ok everybody, can I please have your attention," I heard a women speaking in a thick accent. I whipped my head around and recognized that it was the mother from yesterday, Zola and Zeke's mother.

"My name is Aniso and I am the head chef for tent #1. After this introduction we are going get right to chores because breakfast is served at 9:00 A.M. If you have not checked which chore you have please do so," She said. "Before starting, however, come to me and I will give a quick demonstration as to how it's done. We are responsible for making at least ten pots of rice for every meal. Of course ten pots will only feed a fraction of the camp but there's no need to worry as we only have to worry about our section of refugees," she stopped to take a breath. "Ok, so let's get to it."

I walked over to the head chef and smiled. "Hey Aniso, I didn't know we were going to be working together!"

"Hello darling, what's your job?"

"Pot cleaning," I stated simply.

"Oh, you have a very important job," she says while walking me over to the outside of the tent in the back. "Because we only have five pots to last us through the entire day, you will need to be on top of your game," she explained. "Since we only have so much soap and water, only use a couple of drops between each washing, one or two should be enough."