by Veronique Parages, Skills-Based Volunteer Program Director, HandsOn Network

Père Jean Juste created the foundation and the feeding center where I am volunteering in Haiti years ago.

More than 1000 meals are served once a day from Monday to Friday to the kids and young adults of a poor part of Port-Au-Prince. What an efficient and really helpful place!!!

After applying to be a volunteer, filing up 20 pages of skills and competencies, I received a confirmation saying that I would help in a kitchen.

I was quite disappointed at the beginning – would I see the kids? Would I be cooped up inside somewhere?

I decided to be quiet and wait and see… as a good Haitian would do!

I am so happy I did it.

Let me explain .

In the front, there’s a waiting area, the line area and the eating place.

In the back, there’s the food preparation, the cooking and the organization of the plates.

The feeding center is placed on a hill, located in a empty field with some goats, chickens and one or two cows.

This hill is covered with tent camps and of small houses, half destroyed or half finished.

On top of the hill sits the church of Pere Jean Juste – who unfortunately passed away one year ago. He was well loved and he is well missed.  Huge signs written on the walls in all the surroundings witness how much Pere Jean Juste held everybody’s heart and mind.

The front of the church features a large covered porch where the kids and young adults wait until the feeding center opens its doors.

Step by step, minute by minute, kids come and hang out on the benches.

Some young guys organize Christian songs.

The ambiance is fun and the kids play together in a nice way.

A small front yard is closes for a moment just before it becomes a place to pass on plates full of food.

In the backstage things run smoothly and efficiently.

At 7am, cooks and helpers come through the back yard, surrounded by high walls.

Fresh vegetables, small pieces of meats are cooked together with spices in huge metal heavy buckets.

Rice and beans are cooked in the same heavy recipients.

Fumes, smells, vapors, laughs and songs mingle during the cooking hours.

During various down times, women rest on low chairs in the back yard protected from the sun by an USAid  plastic tent.

Two showers and a restroom are available for all the feeding center’s employees and helpers, a great privilege in this country where most of the people don’t have regular water.

Around 1pm, everything is usually ready for the ball.

Young helpers without hot mitts take two of the huge burning pots full of rice and place them inside the central building where the plates will be passed on.

These two big pots are placed along a large rectangular table.

Huge soup tureens full of meat and sauce and vegetables are also placed on the table.

The ballet of the plates begins!

Along with the other volunteers, I sit around the burning rice pot on law chairs with a metal plate that serves as large serving spoon in one hand and an empty plastic plate in the other one.

We fill the plates – we give more or less depending on the age – and give it to a person who places it on the table.

Two women stand at the table pour sauce and veggies on each plate and organize pyramids of full plates on the rectangular table.

When the table is piled up, “Jean-Claude” one of the feeding center supervisors monitoring the food delivery, opens the window facing the front stage area.

While the preparations occurred, the front yard was opened and kids and adults lined up, at first in a quiet way and more and more noisily after the crowd of young adults crowd arrived.

Whenever Jean-Claude opens the window, the passing of the plates begins.

It is always fast and efficient with clear monitoring of who is getting what, with secret codes and rules for people arriving with their own bucket to fill in for families in distress  who are not able to come to the window.

Outside, additional helpers put spoons on the plates and finalize the process.

As the rectangular table empties quickly, our plates’ dance behind the table doesn’t stop.

Each time we take a full plate of rice, the next layer of rice steams up, burning me.  Who needs a sauna? Here you are… so natural!

I am red, also steaming, sweaty and tired.  My shoulders and hands ache, each plate is heavy, rice is stocked.

I am laughing and smiling, trying to understand everybody talking so fast in Creole around me. No need for music!

The rice bucket is empty? Let’s bring a new one.

Young boys bring a new one, even hotter.

(How is that possible?)

Before they return, I breathe a minute, trying to recover, drinking these little plastic bags full of good water that we can find every where through out the county.

After two hours of work and more than 1,000 meals served, I feel glad that the children will have had a solid meal at least once today.

I am so happy to have been accepted to be part of this!

I am so proud of the feeding center’s members.

I am thankful for all their extraordinary good work and this helpful exercise, repeated every day of the school week, every week of the month, and every month of the year!!!!

I will never ever forget you and will do all I possibly can to help you the most I can in the future.

Be prepared to participate!!!!!