The Reliable “Chef” of Refugee Camps
Masnah Jafar, 51, has been the chief cook in the kitchen of evacuee camps during periods of natural calamity.
Masnah Jafar, 51, has been the chief cook in the kitchen of evacuee camps during periods of natural calamity. From the disaster in Balikpapan, the tremor and tsunami in Palu, to the earthquake in Mamuju, her cooking was available to feed thousands of evacuees.
Holding a knife and wearing an apron over her clothes, Masnah was slicing lamb on an earthen jar. She checked the muscle texture first before cutting. A blue tent served as the roof providing protection from the morning sun that began to blaze at the command post of Muhammadiyah in Rimuku, Mamuju, West Sulawesi, on Saturday (30/1/2021).
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Beside her, seven women were doing the same job. Three sheep had just been slaughtered by a team of volunteers at the Muhammadiyah post for survivors of the West Sulawesi quake. This post was formed out of cooperation between the Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center, Lazismu (charitable institution) and the Haj Financial Management Agency (BPKH).
We don’t make it spicy either because it’s consumed by adults as well as children.
After finishing, the mother of one child turned to a row of stoves a few steps to her right. Frying pans the size of Oshin’s table were placed on the stoves. Clean water was poured into the pans. When the water heated up, the pieces of lamb were cooked. After boiling, the cooking water was drained off.
“This makes the meat tender and not smelly. It’s the way to treat meat with fat, which is cooked first and then drained, so that not much fat is left. We don’t make it spicy either because it’s consumed by adults as well as children. It’s unfortunate if they find it too hot and is of high cholesterol,” said Masnah while preparing other kitchen utensils.
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Seasonings were mixed and lamb curry was being prepared. After an hour, at around midday the curry was served to volunteers and distributed to evacuees. These survivors came from several areas in Mamuju.
The fragrance of the cooking was inviting. This lamb curry was so tasty, with its spices deeply absorbed in the meat pieces that also had some flavor of beef. It could be the effect of hunger or it was indeed scrumptious. “Cooking for evacuees should be in the same way we would do it for ourselves. No part should be reduced for them. They should even enjoy delicious food as they have faced a disaster,” she said.
Assisted by her peers, she was the lead cook at the post that could serve up to 6,000 people daily. They had the main task of preparing spices and cooking as well as proposing the kinds of food.
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Masnah was apparently tireless, with something to do even after cooking. He joined other volunteers who were wrapping up curry. In fact, her right arm had two small bandages to cover needle wounds after blood transfusion and intravenous injection. Her left arm also had a transfusion needle wound.
On Thursday morning (28/1), related Masnah, she felt a bit dizzy. A volunteer health team of Muhammadiyah examined Masnah. Her blood pressure was normal but her hemoglobin rate was low.
She was referred to Bhayangkara Hospital in Mamuju for treatment, where she got five bags of intravenous feeding and two bags of blood transfusion. With her weak condition, she was treated for one night in the hospital.
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Taking a rest for several hours, she woke up at 02.00. After her dawn prayer and taking a bath, she went to the refugee kitchen to cook until it was early morning.
“I’m fit enough after being treated. It’s important to be able to cook again because food for breakfast has to be ready before 06.00, so that volunteers and refugees can eat right after waking up,” said the woman from Balikpapan. The breakfast meals she made could total 1,000 to 2,000 portions daily.
After breakfast, Masnah’s work wasn’t finished yet. Kitchen work awaited her to prepare lunch. She was thus again busy with cooking activity like cutting vegetables and concocting seasonings.
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Thereafter, she entered the room designed for her brief prayer. Next, cooking materials had to be readied for dinner. So were the routines she had to do while in Mamuju for over a week.
The meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner were also different every day. “Refugees shouldn’t be bored of the food. More than just eggs, daily dishes should be varied, while today is chicken, beef is served tomorrow,” she added.
Disaster regions
After a 6.2-magnitude quake rocked Majene and Mamuju on Friday (15/1), Masnah, also a treasurer of the Environment and Disaster Mitigation Division of the Balikpapan Aisyiyah Regional Board, went into action. Along with her peers, she raised funds and donations. She also had coordination with other boards in several regions.
With the funds raised and her definite departure for Mamuju, Masnah bought some quantities of spices as she feared it would be hard to find the materials in the quake-stricken region. On Wednesday (20/1), she arrived in Mamuju with five other women, who belonged to the communal kitchen team. As planned, they would stay for two weeks in Mamuju to cater food for evacuees.
After taking leave of her only teenage child, she departed. “My child stays with cousins. My husband died nine months ago. He had diabetes, getting sick and died,” she said lightly.
It wasn’t the first time for Masnah and peers to cook during a disaster. When an earthquake hit Palu in 2018, about a week after the major tremor, she and the other housewives were already at the evacuation post of Muhammadiyah.
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“We were three for three weeks, cooking. We could still notice victims on roadsides. It roused our deep concern,” said Masnah.
Nonetheless, she said she wasn’t scared to see dead bodies. “I’ve been bathing corpses since the 1990s. I had no fear, I just felt sad to watch so many people die at a time.”
For the last several years, she said, she had been involved in communal kitchen work. Among others, when a fire broke out in a settlement in Balikpapan, forcing hundreds of residents to evacuate, she and her team also opened a kitchen command post.
We were three for three weeks, cooking. We could still notice victims on roadsides. It roused our deep concern.
During the pandemic, they have initiated to distribute food on Fridays. Together they go by car, searching for residents with difficulty in getting food. This routine activity has been done since the middle of last year.
Every time there’s a misfortune or disaster, Masnah is prompted to act right away. With her private deposits or organizational funds, she strives to offer help.
Cooking is her skill, so that she prepares food for refugees or disaster victims, which makes Masnah feel happy. She is very pleased to see people consume her dishes with great appetite.
Her cooking skill is inherited from her mother, known as a village cook. Following in her mother’s footsteps, she is now a cook catering food for such events as weddings or circumcisions. She can be invited to cook or prepare food at home to be delivered as ordered.
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Masnah started learning to cook as a teenager. Besides her mother, she also learned from her neighbor, Endang, who was a chef by profession. This increased her capability of cooking a wide variety of dishes.
“In my wedding, I handled the cooking work. While I had make-up put on my face, those in the kitchen asked me, what other spices, is any more salt needed?” he laughingly said.
Cooking for Masnah is indeed the call of her life. However, something can make her toss her apron and leave the kitchen, which is when she is invited to bathe a corpse.
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According to Masnah, cooking can still be done by others, while corpse bathing can only be handled by very few people. “It happened when I was cooking for a wedding, I got a call that someone had died. I just left. Only Allah knows our fortune, age and mate. We only need to do good deeds,” she said.
She will continue to offer help when any misfortune occurs. But she also hopes there will be no more disasters that claim the lives of many people.
Masnah Jafar
Born: Balikpapan, 30 June 1969
Husband: Faizal Fanani (deceased)
Child: one
Occupation: Cook for weddings and bathing corpses
Organizations:
- Deputy Chairperson of Aisyiyah, West Balikpapan Branch, Balikpapan, East Kalimantan
- Treasurer, Environment and Disaster Mitigation Division of the Balikpapan Aisyiyah Regional Board, East Kalimantan
This article was translated by Aris Prawira.