Panning, Quartering, Dicing and Tubing.

Monday, November 8^th.

Today I start off the day with a tiny jar of Yogurt and coffee in my room.

Carol gives me an egg from the food line, which I’ve not visited in two weeks (Losing weight?).

 The Mission Builders all eat much earlier than the students and staff.

The Mission Builders that are assigned to the kitchen must be there by 7:00 for instructions from Chef Vern.

After instructions for the day to the sixteen volunteer helpers, we pray for the day, anyone willing to pray is asked to pray in their native tongue, beautiful.

I’m assigned to Kevin, the staff assistant to Luki, the kitchen captian. Being Kevin’s assistant offers me daily mysteries. I could be asked to stock stuff, plate stuff, prepare meals, clean up, fix things, move things, lift things, stock the outside freezer (A giant tractor trailer that’s used to haul frozen goods, which is permanently backed up to the outside bye), very, very cold work, especially dressed like a Hawaiian tourist in paper thin shorts and shirt. Or I could stock the inside freezer (an inside one, inside the inside cooler, which is two stage room, each one cooler than the other, the freezer is inside the first cooler. Stock the coolers, clean the coolers, break down boxes to fit in the outside box dumpster, break down large tin cans, cutting out the bottoms and stepping on each one so they can fit more into the outside trash area, sweep, mop, etc.

I’m almost never asked to help with the dishes, why, I don’t know.

I’m never asked to hand out food to people anymore; I think there were complaints that the food was taking too long to get, plus we think the Koreans ( who have a lot of people, and money here, think I’m too loud; they want food, not food and fun, so I’m assigned to Kevin…a Korean.

Working with Kevin is really diverse, which is good.

You will see how long everything takes to do by the short list of activities I had which consumed my day.

1.       I plated chicken, carts of chicken. Plating anything means to fill up a 20 x 30 inch tin pan with ridges, on to a movable aluminum rack that can hold 30 tin pans. It took four racks.
RUNNING TO THE THE INSIDE KITCHEN AREA TO GET THE DEEP PAN CAUSES QUIT THE STIR. A COMMON OCCURRENCE TAKES PLACE UPON MY HOISTING THE HEAVY, DEEP SIDED PANS ONTO THE CHOPPING BLOCKS, 50 LITTLE COCKROACHES SCURRY ACROSS THE TABLE UPON BEING STIRRED BY MY DROPPING THEM ON THE TABLE. THIS IS GREAT FUN TO SEE THE WOMEN WIGGING OUT, BUT THE FUN IS OVER QUICKLY, NOW THESE LITTLE MOTHERS MUST BE KILLED, DIFFICULT TO CHASE THEM DOWN, EVERYTHING MUST BE CLEANED. THE CHICKEN IS SAFE THOUGH, DUE THEIR SEALED PACKING.

2.       I quartered Portuguese sausage, this took a long time, it was frozen, which causes more creativity. The sausage comes three rows to a package; each row is sliced into twenty slices, each slice needed to be quartered, this had to happen for each row, and each package. Two tubs were filled tiny chunks of sausage.

3.       I had to cut eight whole hams. Each ham had to be skinned, then cut in half, then sliced, and then you had to take so many slices and dice them. Three tubs were filled.

4.       I, Lisa from Finland, and Rebbecca from Sweden, had to take frozen bacon and unstrip them from each other (a major hassle, and very tedious and frustrating), we had to fill three 12 x25 x 5 inch deep pans with layers and layers of fat, greasy, stuck together, twisted, broken and resistant beacon. BLTs were being served for dinner. I didn’t have any.

That’s it for my work day.

During my break I worked out at the gym.

During my lunch I took my small salad and took it to the gym so I could have time to work out.

Buckwheat and I walked to the store after work and had KFC.

We came home to drop off the food in our room and talked with our Canadian friends for about an hour.

We said good by to our Mike, our German Mission Builder friend and kitchen buddy. I trully love this guy, very humble, very hard worker, funny, and a real innocent humble young man.

Then Buck and I walked up to Borders with Marie and Lester from Newfoundland. I bought a Vanity Fair (one of my favorite magazines…great articles), and a Sports Illustrated.

We walked back down the steep hill to our little home.

Buckwheat went to play games with the Canadians and I’m blogging.

It’s 9:03 P.M., good night.