Haiti: the aid army marches on its stomach

Children leave the Muncheez restaurant in Port-au-Prince. The restaurant owners have been giving out free meals to children in the camps for homeless earthquake survivors.

19th March 2010

In stricken Haiti, food is key not just to survival, but also to the morale of the aid workers and the displaced

Lunch was patés, which look a bit like Cornish pasties that someone has stamped on. But the children were very excited. Most of them had had nothing but bread or the United Nations high-energy biscuits to eat that day. The cook, 19-year-old Valencia Desiluz, was frying them in hot oil, for anyone with 5 Haitian gourdes (about 10p) to spend.

When my turn came I had a nervous bite: the crunchy pastry was good, but it opened up a Worcester sauce reek of dried fish and onion . This was a little bit further than my stomach was prepared to go on a first date with Haitian disaster camp food. So I gave the rest of the paté to two small boys — Stanley and Dieudonné — who thanked me politely and ate it before we’d finished exchanging names.

Read the rest of this article at Times Online.