La Cucina de Miriam

I just finished writing a paper for class, and it sounded like a blog entry, so I thought, this should go on my blog! And it did. The end.

Before I came to college, 5:00 in the morning was nothing. I could wake up, shower, get dressed, get to seminary, and be there with a smile on my face and scripture mastery scriptures in my head. Once freshmen year hit, it became a struggle to wake up just to get to an 8:00 class. That said, the prospect of getting up to feed homeless people at an hour so terribly soon after I’d gone to bed didn’t immediately fill me with the greatest joy. The experience, however, was even more pleasant than I told myself it would be.
We all got up, trudged down to the kitchen, and tried to remind ourselves of how good it feels to do service, and how much it would mean to these homeless people that we were up and helping to feed them. We all got hairnets and aprons to wear…I felt like I’d been put back to work in the Morris Center. The individual running the kitchen hadn’t expected all of us to come, and in a hurried and slightly gruff manner, told us to fill out some paperwork, and then get to work. We all managed to smile in spite of the slight harshness. All of us seemed determined to have a good time while serving, that’s what we were there for, right? I was immediately put to work cutting small sausages apart and placing them in rows on a cookie sheet. I went at the job with all the vigor I could muster.
As we all worked in our respective positions—some of us making smoothies, some of us cracking eggs, some of us helping to wash dishes—I began to notice a change in the individual who was running the kitchen. His gruffness started to melt away as he saw that we were a bunch of cheerful, pleasant youth who were there to help do a job. We weren’t there for any reason other than the desire to serve. As we chatted merrily amongst ourselves, the other workers in the kitchen began to chat more merrily. Soon after I finished cutting all the little sausages apart, in a burst of generosity, I was given a box of other sausages to cut up so that we could give the homeless people more meat if they wanted it. Soon, those were cut and cooked, and it was time to start serving breakfast.
As people came through the line, it was interesting to see their personalities. Each individual was different. Some of the people were peppy and grateful, some people seemed resentful that they were there, having to get food from a bunch of perky college students. Some of the people were exceptionally young, and looked like they’d been through so much in their lives already. There were a few couples, a few older people, and a lot of gratitude. I was in charge of serving the cole slaw and the smoothies. It was the oddest combination of words in reference to a meal that I’d ever said. Interestingly enough, most of the homeless people who came through wanted the cole slaw, and wanted no part of the smoothies—they didn’t know what it was. I was surprised that we were serving cole slaw at all in our meal. The kitchen director explained that it has a ton of calories, and that they really try to load up the meals with them so that when people leave they’ll have enough calories to make it through the rest of the day if they can’t get any other food.
From the experience I became more appreciative of what I have. Sure, it was early, and I would have rather been sleeping when I woke up, but by the time I was cutting those raw little sausages apart, I was happy to be there, and feeling like I was doing something worthwhile. Just getting to watch the people eat a good meal, and to be able to come back for seconds, made me more fully aware of how much need there is all around me. I hate walking through areas where there are lots of people begging for money because I feel badly not being able to help them all. Working in that kitchen gave me the chance to feel like, even if I weren’t helping very many people, I was doing some small part to serve and make up for the fact that I can’t help them all. It also has encouraged me to think about the problem of homelessness, and what it means to our country. It’s such a complex issue, and I certainly don’t have an answer as to what we should do. Thanks to my experiences recently with the homeless though, I’m a lot more encouraged to try and find one.