Cooking

Cooking is simple, you turn on the burner and wait until the pan or oven heats up and that’s all there is to it.  Right?

Not always in the children’s home.   Inday, that cooks for the children and takes care of their needs, has a couple choices.   Depending on how funds have come in, she can cook over gas or wood.

The gas is propane like the grill tanks here in the USA, that is locally called Gasul.   It connects to a single burner camp type stove.   This is what she uses when the funds allow for the purchase of gas.   It is about $25.00 USD to get the tank filled and there is not always the extra funds in the budget to allow for this extra expense.

When the funds are short, she cooks over wood.   In the picture you can see the counter top wood fired cooker on the left hand side of the counter.   In rainy weather it is harder to cook using the wood.

Other methods of cooking are shown in the picture of the covered cooking area attached to the side of the thatched house.   This house belongs to the lady that hires people to help catch and dry the fish.  The cooking area, since you can’t call it a stove, is similar to many in the area that consist of a sheet metal pan filled with dirt or even a board box with dirt in it to keep the fire from burning through.   I would often see people fanning the green wood to get a fire going hot enough to cook.

Whether wood or gas, it is a challenge for Inday to cook for between 22-26 children but she never complains.   It is our hope that we can get a stove for the children’s home soon.   It is on our list of projects to address as funds allow.