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St. Stephen's College was in another section and housed about 150, while each of the five teachers' bungalows held about 40. There was one large building where most of the police had assembled. One building for the Dutch and two for the Americans. Altogether there were about 3,000 internees. From the first, the Americans had their own kitchen. There were less than 400 of them so that the hundreds of others had to be served at the "married quarters." Great cauldrons of rice were placed at one end and a thin fish soup. We took what receptacles we could find. Some were lucky enough to have bowls brought from the hotels where they had been interned. Others had meat or jam tins for cups. Our family had sardine tins, and a cheese tin, made more convenient by tin handles which George kindly fastened on for us. It took about three hours to serve the food. That is, we stood in a queue for 2 or 3 hours. The penalty for living above a queue and coming late meant meager or no rations. Some men were smart enough to come in a second time in the queue. Later when there were several kitchens, some roamed, until discovered, from one to another. I remember one memorable sermon preached by Mr. Gates saying that if you were in the "right queue" there was plenty of room and no disappointment at the end. We received one ladle of rice and about half a ladle of soup twice a day and that was all at the beginning. The cooking was done by volunteers in the camp. There was endless dissatisfaction and constant changes. The cooks were accused of extra rations, but more likely they went without. It took about 15 minutes to walk to the married quarters-two or three hours to get our food and a 15 minute walk back. This meant I left after nursing the baby and got back in time to nurse him again. Subsequently other kitchens were started, and finally we had our own bungalow kitchen and three excellent cooks and three sub-cooks on shifts. The men were told to take turns cooking the rice and also to get the rations.
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