A KITCHEN ADVENTURE

I don’t get to go out on adventures a lot, but anytime I do, or go on vacation, I try as much as possible to engage in community service. The last community service I engaged in was in 2023. Damn it's been two years already, I really need to start going out more often lol. I remember going for that camp meeting because I needed time out, most especially I needed time to relate more with nature and find myself. The only things I did during that time was eat, sleep, and attend church programs. There was basically free food at camp, and everyone around was feeling generous enough to share whatever they had, me included. It was the first time I got to relax in a very long while, and it meant a lot to me. There was something about that environment because it was filled with nature, a lot of the houses there were mud houses with lakes and streams situated at different places. There were also lots of trees bringing out the nature vibe I was craving for.

Okay it seems I deviated quite a bit huh! There were really fun memories I couldn't help. I couldn't go around the camp because it was a city on its own, however, I decided to visit some strategic places and one of those places was the camp's main kitchen. It was so big that moving around it was tiring. I saw that 150 cows were slaughtered every single day to feed over 2 million people present at the camp. What was touching was seeing that the workload in the kitchen was more than any other place because of the variety of food they had to cook coupled with the fact that they were cooking for a very large number of people. Although the people in the kitchen were many, the work was even more. Most of them were indigenes of the community where the camp is situated, while others are pastors' wives obligated to work with them.

It was evident that a lot of people would only join the kitchen when the food was ready and would not join in the cooking because of how stressful it was. But there was another problem too, not just anyone could be allowed in to join in the cooking, and anyone who wished to join must follow due process. I decided to apply not because I could cook, but because I know they will need hands in a lot of heavy lifting. What I didn't expect was the process to be so easy because they were really in need of workers. Seeing I was accepted, I called some of my friends who I knew would love to assist to come join after I explained why the kitchen needed help and they were all happy to as they also brought others along and together there were about 16 of us working in the kitchen. Working with the kitchen staff was fun, a lot of them could not speak English really well, so they stuck with their native dialect which is Yoruba.

Only one out of the 16 of us was Yoruba and understood Yoruba, so when we joined the kitchen staff were talking about us in Yoruba referring to us as Omo Igbo (It's how they mostly refer to those not from Yoruba). They would only talk when the person who understood Yoruba wasn't around. Unfortunately for them, I understand Yoruba because I was born there plus my mum is also Yoruba, but I chose not to say anything until one of them wanted the number of a guy in my group and her friends were telling her to just ask him but she was shy because her English wasn't really good. I started chuckling to myself and asked her (in Yoruba) if I should help her get it. Immediately they realized I understood Yoruba, they all started laughing and the girl in question became embarrassed. I told her there was no need to be embarrassed because even my Yoruba wasn't that good and it was even obvious from how I was speaking.

At last I ended up being an interpreter for the guy she wanted a number from. I can't even remember her name again because it's been a while now, but that day I enjoyed working in the kitchen for the very first time. It felt good cooking for millions of people even though I was not the one adding all the spices or doing the mixing, I was helping get water, or carrying bags of rice and big pots of rice. Working in the kitchen also came with its own privileges too, I can't count the number of meat I ate in the process of working. I ate so much that I never felt hungry or tired while working, courtesy of the girls we were talking to and their mothers who became fond of us. The whole expedition lasted for two days, but I was happy to have participated.

THIS IS MY RESPONSE TO HIVE LEARNER'S PROMPT FOR WEEK 152 EPISODE 1

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