Colombia to Türkiye: A chef’s journey to feed earthquake survivors

Less than per week after two earthquakes devastated southern Türkiye, Ivan Francisco Escobar made a virtually three-hour highway journey from Adana by way of one of many worst-hit areas.

The 43-year-old chef had travelled continuous from his house within the bustling Colombian metropolis of Barranquilla – on February 10, he flew from his house in Colombia to Istanbul after which took a connecting flight to Adana earlier than the highway journey to his vacation spot, Antakya within the Hatay province.

Since then, Escobar has been getting ready 25,000 meals each day for the earthquake survivors in Antakya, one of many worst-hit areas within the 7.7 and seven.6 earthquakes that killed greater than 50,000 individuals in Türkiye and Syria and left thousands and thousands homeless.

Escobar is a member of the World Central Kitchen, a US-based non-profit which offers meals in pure disasters, made-made crises and humanitarian emergencies. It was one of many first humanitarian assist groups to reach in Türkiye following the worst pure catastrophe in current historical past.

Escobar says the survivors want each attainable assist to beat this tragedy.  

“There is just one thing that you can do, and that is, fill yourself with strength and bravery for these people. They need it all,” he tells TRT World over the telephone throughout a break from his routine.  

“And there’s no time to complain, to whine. There is no time to be weak, only time to be strong and do what you need to do to feed as many people as possible. I’ve reached my limit of 25,000 meals a day and I’m very proud of that,” he provides.

Escobar has a group of six Turkish cooks and volunteers serving to him.

A impolite shock

On the day the earthquakes struck Türkiye, Escobar returned house from work late within the evening. And solely when he scrolled by way of his social media timelines, he noticed the heart-breaking photographs attributable to the pure catastrophe on his cellular handset.

In an on the spot, he knew what he needed to do.

“As soon as I saw these images, the next thing I did was contact my superiors (in WCK) and said, ‘please send me to Türkiye immediately’,” he remembers. “I was one of the first to say that I was ready to go.”

Three days later, the culinary professional with 22 years of expertise was on a airplane to Türkiye, following the trail of World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres of Spain, who led the NGO’s first group to the catastrophe zone.

“…The drive is something I will never forget…images of buildings on the ground,” Escobar says, recalling sights of  buildings levelled to the bottom “through all the region”.

“From Adana to Antakya, you can start seeing the damage. But when you get close to Antakya, it’s devastation, complete devastation.”

Escobar – who has labored in different disaster-hit areas – says he has seen the devastating influence of hurricanes, storms and flooding. “But the level of destruction that I am experiencing in Antakya, I’ve never seen,” he says, including that the realm has been completely destroyed “where all the buildings are in a mountain of rubble”.

“It’s very difficult. People have lost family members, businesses – you’re feeding people with extremely low morale.  That’s why it is important to do everything possible to increase that morale.”

Plate of hope

Escobar, whose earlier deployment was within the Dominican Republic after a hurricane in September 2022, says that individuals working in catastrophe zones face quite a lot of challenges, particularly when a spot experiences numerous aftershocks, together with tremors of enormous magnitudes.

He describes the job as “very difficult because we are still experiencing earthquakes. I’m working while it (the earth) shakes.”

“When it shakes and everything moves like this it is difficult.  I’m in a field kitchen,” says Escobar, who put collectively the kitchen on the patio of a destroyed constructing.

His NGO has given him the monetary backing for all the things he wants – from large cooking pots and pans to workstations and tents to retailer his groceries.

Food producers and eating places are additionally backing Escobar with provides, often taking two days to ship the gadgets requested by his group.

He says the meals they produce are transported in vehicles to 18 completely different distribution factors inside an hour’s drive from the camp, making certain the meals stay heat. The meals are served to each survivors and varied groups engaged in very important work within the devastated area.

A style of  Türkiye

Escobar describes the meals his group produces as “authentic” and “homemade”, an extension of the NGO founder Andres’s philosophy that “food relief is not just a meal that keeps hunger away. It’s a plate of hope. It tells you in your darkest hour that someone, somewhere, cares about you.”

Escobar says his group takes into consideration the meals habits of the locals by producing gadgets comparable to stews flavoured with typical Turkish spices and acquainted proteins like hen. Besides, additionally they serve bulgur – a cracked wheat foodstuff sometimes utilized in Asian cooking.

“We haven’t come here to make burgers and hot dogs, rather to cook for the people what they truly have been waiting for, homemade food, well prepared with them in mind,” he says.

Escobar additionally underscores the constructive influence meals can have on individuals’s spirits.

“When you are working with people who have just lost everything, our role, more than feeding, is to try to increase morale. The food that we are producing is so special that its aim is to try to bring a smile, to try to bring a little bit of normality to somebody who is experiencing total chaos.”

He additionally notes the solidarity among the many Turkish individuals who have come to volunteer from non-impacted areas comparable to Istanbul.

He says they sometimes strategy the camp and get redirected by Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) within the path of the group’s subject kitchen.

“I had the luck, the blessing, to count on very good help and I’m here with chefs from the city of Istanbul, professional cooks who are available and under my direction to make this operation possible,” says Escobar.

“My mission is until March 10 after which my idea is to cede the operation to these Turkish volunteers so that they keep doing what we’ve been doing. Then we as an organisation keep supporting them economically. We will pay for the operation as we are doing but without our direction and under Turkish direction,” explains the Colombian chef.

Food distribution in Antakya will proceed below the locals, like 42-year-old Turkish Sezgin Sayiliroglu who has been a chef for 5 years.

Arriving greater than per week in the past, Sayiliroglu says he has been working round 15 hours a day within the kitchen. “My role is to put (in) the right ingredients, the right spices to the food to cook it well,” he tells TRT World.

Sayiliroglu says he’s right here for the lengthy haul and can assist nevertheless he can, insisting “I can stay maybe three or four months. It doesn’t matter.”

He hopes over time the survivors might be able to rebuild their lives however proper now they want solidarity to beat such excessive adversity.

“We are only human beings, so if we have bad (experiences) in life, it reminds us that we are human beings and we should always be together no matter from what city, from what country, from what religion you are. You should always support each other,” Sayiliroglu provides.

Source: TRT World