Help with Food
School is closed for the summer now in Haiti and all children are enjoying their summer vacation. In the country side where Star of Hope is working in different localities, the summer vacation for children in their communities differ from those living in the city. For boys, they are living and stay outdoors almost all day, while the girls are having fun learning the responsibilities of a “woman” inside the house.
In Bois Negresse, a 10 years old girl during the summer vacation wakes up in the morning and starts her day in the outdoor kitchen; a small building covered with coconut leaves framed on the sides with palm thatch roof. She will sweep the dirt floor first and light the fire in a stove made of 3 large rocks. Like a responsible woman, she will put the coffee pot on the stove and prepare the coffee. When the coffee is ready and announced, everyone will gather around the stove and drink their hot cup of coffee with a piece of cassava bread.
After everyone is served, mother takes charge in the kitchen to prepare breakfast while the girl would step inside the house to sweep, to make the beds and to put everything in order before taking her plastic container to search for water for the household to use. Usually, during summer vacation girls go in groups to search for water. They run, play, laugh and goof around , making the task fun rather than a responsibility. When they come back home, often their food is cold on the table. It doesn’t matter much as they have fun seeing how the entire household is counting on them with their gallon of water, for a cup to drink, to prepare dinner and to do the dishes.
After breakfast mother and young brothers often go in search for more wood to prepare dinner and check the garden for things ready to consume. Meanwhile, the girls will stay home to clean the dried beans, put it on the stove to boil and wait for mother to come back to prepare dinner.
After dinner, she will collect all the dirty dishes to wash aloing with her mother. And as it starts to be dark and cooler, everyone will gather in the kitchen as it started in the morning to warm up around a cup of tea made of citronella, basil and orange leaves that the girls usually grabbed on their way home from getting water.
Oops! I just remember when I was 12 visiting my aunt from my mother side in the countryside in the South…
Myrtha Dor
Star of Hope, Haiti
