A woman in a red hijab and a loose yellow blouse placed oil-baked chicken to crisp in an industrial-sized pot before topping it with carrots, potatoes, cabbage and eggplant. Alchemy kicked in and the mixture slowly turned into a fragrant stew.
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The woman, Oumou Doumbouya, learned to cook this chicken feast from her mother in her homeland of Guinea in West Africa, and used to make it for birthdays and weddings. This time, she said, the special occasion was simply being able to cook again. She arrived with her family in New York City in October 2022 after crossing the southern border, and the shelter where they are staying does not have a kitchen she can use.
So she turned to the cramped basement kitchen of Metro Baptist Church in Midtown Manhattan. The kitchen is the magic behind a volunteer-run center that has helped thousands of immigrants start over. Called ROCC — short for Resources, Opportunities, Connections, Community — the center opened a year ago and is supported mostly by small donations.
Migrants from more than a dozen countries have worked side by side in the kitchen, taking pride in their cooking and sharing the flavors of their homelands. The center has created a close-knit community that has become a counterpoint to the overwhelmed shelters, bureaucracy and anti-immigrant protests of the city’s migration crisis.
“Wherever you go in this world, you can create your own family,” said Ibrahima Sow, Doumbouya’s husband, who volunteers at the center.
Migrants, who hear about the center from others, come seeking help with City ID cards, health insurance and immigration issues. They stay to enjoy hot, freshly made meals and the chance to cook in a kitchen where all are welcome, giving them a respite from the hardships of their daily lives.
The small nonprofit that operates the center, Artist Athletes Activists, entered the migration crisis with no paid staff, few financial resources and little more than its members’ desires to do good.
“Whatever comes in comes out, that’s how we operate,” said Power Malu, a hip-hop artist and community activist who founded the group. “We don’t have the luxury of sitting on resources. We try to use them as soon as we have access to them.”
On the day she was preparing her stew, Doumbouya, 26, picked up her 1-year-old daughter, Khadijatou, and placed her on her back, tied in a baby blanket.
While Doumbouya was cooking, Sow was upstairs welcoming migrants into the center.
Sow, 40, and Doumbouya come from a large Muslim family in Dubréka, a village in western Guinea. Their late father, a tailor, had four wives and 14 children. The couple had worked for the family business.
In New York, migrants in the kitchen prepare more than 100 meals a day on a shoestring budget of about $250.
Anyone who wants to cook can do so and no culinary knowledge is required. The food is more homely than fancy. Desserts, however, are another story.
Jean Rodriguez bakes delicious piñata and tres leches cakes from a notebook of handwritten recipes she brought from Venezuela across the Darien Gap. She keeps the notebook wrapped in white linen and carefully unwraps it in the kitchen.
Rodriguez, 51, said he didn’t know anyone when he arrived in New York in December and became depressed as he sat in a shelter. “When I’m alone, I start to think: Why did I come here?” he said.
But Rodriguez, who cooked in restaurants in Venezuela for more than 20 years, found hope and renewed purpose in the kitchen.
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