Kitchen Asst

I am a kitchen assistant here in the Tahasil Colony in Ganjam. It is a busy part of Orissa to be working in. My day starts very early because the prep work takes a long time. I spend hours peeling vegetables and making sure the counters are scrubbed down. The kitchen gets really hot once the stoves are lit, but you get used to it after a few weeks. We are right here in the colony so we see the same people walking past every morning. It is a small community and everyone knows what everyone else is doing. I don't cook the main meals, I just help out with whatever the head cook needs. Sometimes I am washing dishes and other times I am carrying heavy bags of rice from the delivery truck. It is physical work and I am usually pretty tired by the time I get to sit down. We don't have a lot of fancy equipment. We do things the old way mostly. It works for us and the food comes out fine. I like being in Ganjam. The air is different here and the people are generally kind. We have our routine and we stick to it every day. It is not a complicated life. I just show up, do my work in the kitchen, and then walk back home through the colony when the sun starts to go down.