Healing Wounds through Cooking Group

The following is a reflection prepared for Christine Caldera, one of this year's North House Volunteers. Christine shared this reflection as part of her community's Pentecost Reflections, which explores the movements of the Paschal Mystery. Christine spoke of "Easter", and the themes of change and reception of new life.

Easter Sunday reminds us that we must welcome change for continual self improvement.  We are encouraged to embrace new life and be open to change in order to undergo personal transformation. Throughout my year serving at the Marjorie Kovler Center as a case manager for torture survivors, there have been many moments of joy, uncertainty, sadness, and friendship.  As I reflect upon the last nine months working with a vulnerable, yet resilient population, I find that I have gained a sense of new life and perspective to carry with me. I foster social connections with clients through accompaniment, accessing resources and services, but most of all by participating in a Kovler cooking group.

If you ring the Kovler Center’s doorbell on a Friday night, there is a good chance that I would welcome you to join the joyful chaos that is a cooking group. Twice a month, the occupational therapist arranges a cooking group to share a delicious and authentic meal from a survivor’s home country. One or two survivors serve as head chefs, teaching other clients and staff how to prepare traditional food. This group immerses you in international cuisine, which tends to evoke memories and stories of home. Connecting with a client while behind my desk and computer can be challenging, yet, in the kitchen there are no barriers to forming a life giving relationship. Cooking group cultivates a better understanding of others because I immerse myself in the culture and stories that are shared. This group provides survivors an outlet to feel at home, which tends to be a foreign feeling to survivors in a new country.

Although we ought to embrace new life during Easter Sunday, we may not readily accept change. During this year of Amate House, I am trying to be more open to leaning into discomfort and uncertainty. Cooking group occasionally takes me out of my comfort zone in simple ways, but also in ways that help me grow as a person.  This personal growth can be as straightforward as expanding my palate. I have eaten chicken gizzard from a traditional Cameroonian dish, tasted Haitian Independence Day soup, and learned how to use injera as a utensil while eating cabbage and potato wat from Ethiopia. There have been simple, but meaningful moments such as explaining to a client from Ivory Coast what asparagus is and seeing the look of curiosity after trying this vegetable for the first time. The taste and smell of a guava reminded many clients of home, which awakened a connection to their past life, but one that was shared amongst clients of different languages and countries. In the most recent cooking group, an Argentinian client taught participants how to dance the tango, which I failed miserably at. Trying traditional meals or dance is a meaningful way of connecting cross-culturally because those activities are universal rituals. I appreciate the quality time spent with Kovler participants during a cooking group, as this time spent together rejuvenates me as well as the clients. This group embraces diversity, fosters community and wellness amongst Kovler clients and staff, and empowers survivors. For this reason, cooking group has proven to be one of the most transformative and enjoyable moments of my time serving as a case manager.

In the words of Miriam Adeney, “you will never be completely at  home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place”. As my time at the Kovler Center is coming to an end, I occasionally find myself avoiding the goodbyes. I feel at home when I walk through the front door and am in the presence of Kovler clients. I opened my heart to the participants, so I could better empathize and be in solidarity with the clients. My heart is forever broken after hearing the torture and trauma narratives that Kovler clients experienced. Torture creates a permanent wound, but the hope that emanates from the survivors at Kovler inspires me. Without having an open heart, I would not have had fruitful experiences and relationships that give me life as I have now. The goodbyes will be difficult, but I am lucky to have a place and group of people so difficult to say goodbye to.