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PRESS RELEASE
Mennonite World Conference
September 2, 2003

Feeding the 7,000

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe — Among the many miracles at Africa 2003, surely the greatest was the feeding of the nearly 7,000.

Just how does one provide two nutritious, tasty meals a day for that many people or more for seven days in a country with a severe food shortage, amid a serious economic crisis, in a facility lacking commercial kitchen equipment?

With ingenuity, meticulous planning, an army of workers and the implacable faith of chief planner Thoko Ndlovu, who began working on the food program two years ago.

Each day, assembly goers consumed 1,200 kg of mealie meal (the basis of Zimbabwe's staple food, a maize porridge called sadze), the beef from six to eight cattle, 1,200 kilograms of potatoes, 500 kg of rice and 7,500 oranges or other fruit — plus tonnes of fresh and cooked vegetables and salads, juices and tea. And all cooked in the Zimbabwean traditional way for big feasts: in gigantic cast-iron pots over open fires.

Procuring such quantities presented unique challenges, with drought and the economic crisis forcing nongovernmental organizations to provide food aid to millions in particularly hard-hit southern and central Zimbabwe.

In spite of the challenges, "I've always been positive," Ndlovu said. "I think it was really God's guidance we were able to procure that food."

Negotiations many months earlier with the grain marketing board in the northern part of the country, where food is more plentiful, ensured that there would be enough maize to fill the assembly needs. Chickens were ordered months in advance from a Brethren in Christ poultry farmer. Contracts were struck with small market gardeners in the area around Bulawayo to grow a variety of vegetables, including carrots, butternut (squash), cabbage and a leafy green vegetable called chomolier, specifically for the event.

Forty beef cattle were provided by the Wanezi mission station some 80 km from Bulawayo, which were shipped live, hygienically butchered and refrigerated in a city abattoir until needed to ensure healthiness.

These special means of procurement ensured that assembly goers needn't worry they were taking food out of the mouths of hungry Zimbabweans, Ndlovu said. In fact, for many poor and rural participants, some of whom paid the equivalent of only $1 U.S. to attend, the luxury of eating meat daily made this a special celebration.

The pots were hired from a local company and borrowed from community clubs. Ndlovu herself donated the use of reusable plastic plates, cups and eating utensils for 7,500 people. Truckloads of firewood were brought in to stoke the dozens of small fires over which the food was cooked.

But finding the goods was only part of the job.

"To set up a menu for the whole week for different nations, and make sure that food was acceptable, was really the greatest challenge," Ndlovu said. "We tried to make it as simple as we could so that at least we were able to serve almost everybody with everything that we prepared for the day. After the first two days we could see that it seemed to be working."

Most meals consisted of rice, sadze, a flavourful meat stew, a vegetable and a salad, with fresh fruit. The food was traditional Zimbabwean, but from recipes developed in Ndlovu's "hobby" — catering to large functions such as weddings and funerals, for which she has fed up to 3,000 people at a time. But never for so many, for so long.

Fortunately, as the chief executive officer of a luggage manufacturing company that employs 1,700 people, Ndlovu is well-equipped to manage labour-intensive operations. The mammoth task required an army of workers: nearly 120 recruited from community clubs and boarding schools, supplemented by local BIC and international volunteers.

They were divided into teams handling starches, meats, vegetables and the tedious task of washing-up outdoors in large tin tubs. Ndlovu's own two daughters, who often help in her catering business, took on the job of laundering 300 dish towels daily. For BIC members in particular, helping with food meant sacrificing one's own participation in assembly events.

"That's the commitment one needs to make, to say I'm doing this to make the conference a success, not for us as individuals but for the conference as a whole," Ndlovu said.

Assembly participants who wandered into the cooking area tucked behind the main dining hall were amazed to see dozens of pots of food simmering in the open air, being stirred with large paddles. Though the means might seem very basic, Ndlovu said, being able to produce perfectly cooked food in such quantities involves practiced technique. Each leader was responsible for ensuring that the food cooked would be sufficient for the day's needs — a real challenge especially for the final day, when the participation of many more local church members was expected.

Each team leader took it as their responsibility to ensure that sufficient quantities were cooked for the meal's needs, even though planning had been for 5,000 people and more than 7,000 showed up the first night, producing an unexpected crush. Almost always, there was plenty left over, enough in fact to use some leftover sadze to produce for foreign visitors a traditional treat, the fermented drink known as amahewu.

Not everything ran smoothly.

When a supplier failed to deliver certain nonperishables before the assembly began, Ndlovu had to call on her connections as a part-time caterer to locate hard to find items and suppliers willing to take a cheque instead of cash, since the banks were closed for a national holiday. Following days often found her going into the city to find things that hadn't arrived as scheduled.

The day before the assembly began, Ndlovu received a call at 6:30 p.m. saying that 100 Zambians had just arrived, tired and famished from a day on the bus without food. Could she help?

Quickly, she went to the assembly site to gather food, rounded up her sister and daughters, started the cooking fires in her own yard and began to prepare a meal. By 10:30 p.m., the food was ready, delivered and being served to the grateful Zambian group in their lodgings.

"They really welcomed our gesture to assist them," Ndlovu said modestly about a feat that would have defeated most cooks in countries with many more resources at their disposal. In Zimbabwe, the welcoming "Woza" — "come" — was never experienced more heartily than at the table.

Mennonite World Conference release by Doreen Martens for Meetinghouse