The ‘soup kitchen’ isn’t just free food. It’s a community meal. This is why it’s important you attend

Mostly peaceful dining
Photos by Persephone Bolero

By Persephone Bolero

RIO GRANDE --Every Sunday, the Tytista Sonfevre faction holds what they call a soup kitchen. It’s really not the best name for this weekly event. If you think it’s just some free food, you’re missing out. It’s something much more than that.

Trailer park community

Prior to my return to these mosquito-infested jungles, I lived in Jay’s Trailer Park in California’s Mohave Desert. It was hodgepodge of dwellings in various states of disrepair surrounded by miles of sand and scrub brush.

The residents who called “The Jay” home came from all over North America. A retired bus driver and his wife, who wheeled around a canister of oxygen, were often shouting at the family of Mexican immigrants who lived across the unpaved road from them and blasted their music in the heat of the late evenings.

One street over from me lived a couple of meth heads who did a pretty good job of keeping a low profile, were it not for their emaciated appearance and scab-pocked faces. They were always under the gaze of a San Bernardino sheriff’s deputy who patrolled the park twice per day, waiting patiently for the meth heads to make a mistake that would allow him to arrest them.

And there was a Roger Piper, a devout Christian who lived with his wife and three kids in the nicest trailer home in the park, which featured a fancy fifth-wheel RV parked in the driveway. He was a roughneck who commuted every week to his job in the oilfields north of Bakersfield, while his wife raised the kids.

For various reasons, this motley group ended up living in a trailer park in the middle of a California desert. Some neighbors waved to each other, some glared, and some schemed revenge over real and perceived sleights.

Every Saturday morning, Maria Cisnaros parked her food truck at the park entrance. I lack the culinary skills to say what Señorita Cisneros did to make her breakfast burritos so amazingly good, but they brought the park residents together every week, where we all sat on decaying picnic tables while flies buzzed around us.

Maria Cisnaros' food truck

I won’t paint you a rosy picture of the gathering. The residents of The Jay didn’t put aside their grudges and resentments during these meetings and hold hands, but they did keep their weapons holstered long enough to enjoy what were the best breakfast burritos any of us had ever tasted. And as a result, we would talk.

The conversations were usually friendly, but sometimes warring neighbors would argue, as expected. These spats, however, were restrained, and as result, I believe, they gave us another means to air grievances without weapons. Everyday conflicts between neighbors rarely find an ultimate resolution, and left to their devices, they can fester. These de facto community meals acted like a pressure valve. By talking over a meal, hostile or friendly, the sharp edges of neighborly conflicts were softened enough that violence throughout the week was much more rare.

Soup de jure

There is something about really good food that can get people to put aside their differences long enough to engage in a little conversation. The meals that are served at the Tytista Sonfevre’s soup kitchen go far beyond the gruel that most of us live on here in the Amazon.

One week, the “soup de jure” was made with seasonal vegetables, diced carrot, fresh kale, chopped celery and lentils with various herb and spices, with tender beef cuts throughout. Another week, they served, as Dr. Tyson LeFevre described it, Thai coconut chicken soup with the chicken so tender it falls apart to allow that sweet succulent chicken meat to blend flawlessly with the shitake mushrooms and sweet carrots with fresh cilantro grown right here in the heart of the Amazon.

Last week, they served, as Qui Symone O’Hara Gilera described it, strawberry pie consisting of a golden buttery brown crust filled with plump strawberries with a sweet strawberry puree with sugar and vanilla extracts. 

 

Qia Symone O’Hara Gilera on Easter Sunday

Honestly, I’m not sure how they manage to make such fine fare with the difficulty sourcing anything of quality in this jungle. The faction is apparently very resourceful. Dr. SonDee LeFevre, Tyson’s wife, explained to me they work with various vendors to import whatever they aren’t able to source locally, and holding the meals only once a week minimizes the demands on their time.

“We are just happy that people do take to what we do here. Although we may not see a lot of people each week, we take pride in knowing that the jungle knows we are here,” Dr. SonDee said.

In their prior life, she said, she and her husband owned restaurants and resorts, which was demanding of their time. At a slower pace, they wanted to utilize their culinary skills here in the jungle.

“I figured we might as well stay in our lane and do what we know, which is food. Tyson and I had a homeless shelter back in those days as well so we were always in the field of serving others. This actually turned out much better than I ever expected. We are honored to do it,” she said.

Never alone

Pleasures are few and far between in this jungle, but the faction’s food, if I may be so bold, is second only to orgasms. But what makes these meals truly special is the conversations.

At the Tytista Sonfevre faction’s meals, I crossed paths with people I might not have ever come across were we not drawn together by the faction’s food. I met a native woman, Chieftess Calypso, who rules over the Poukai tribe. I had never even heard of this tribe, but as she breastfed her infant child, I tried to decipher her thick accent to learn a little about her and her tribe. I also learned of a man, Jonas Daviau, who invented a helicopter to give people tours up and down the river. 

 

Dr. Tyson LeFevre

There are smatterings of gossip. I learn the latest about who is fighting who and who is sleeping with who. There are jokes told and stories shared. As with the residents of The Jay, not all the conversation at the soup kitchen is pleasant. I once suggested that, as people who live as their ancestors did a thousand years ago, the natives may not be the most ambitious people. Ever sensitive as they are, the natives present at the table apparently took umbrage with the statement and proceeded to give me a stern rebuke, insisting they are, in fact, a hardworking people.

I can’t say I found their arguments convincing, anymore than they accepted the sincerity of my apology. Nonetheless, drawn together by the pleasure of fine food, people with chasms of differences between them can come together and leave relatively unscathed and with their bellies full. I think there’s value in that. 

 

Dr. SonDee LeFevre serves up fine fare

It’s the power of a community meal. While we here in the jungle may not always like each other, we are neighbors. The universe, by whatever power moves it, will inconsiderately force us to live next to each other regardless of any similarities or differences we have, whether we like it or not. And I think that’s by design, to remind us that we are, for better or worse, never alone.  

So, if we’re going to have to share this god-forsaken jungle together, we might as well once per week come together and enjoy a fine meal and accept our fate. I would highly encourage everyone to participate. You might make new friends. You might come face-to-face with old enemies. But you will, on some level, come away better off than when you arrived.

The soup kitchens are held most Sundays around 1 p.m. SLT, near the Las Ninas cave exit. I hope to see you all there. 

Some diners bring their children.