Cooking

After being sick, I’ve spent some time with Theresa helping her make food that shouldn’t make me sick. I had been happily disengaged with the cooking process until this. It’s truly stunning nothing worse has happened to my health. I have yet to see a local clean their hands. In a place where every thing you touch is coated in dirt, that’s a big deal. We started the soup by peeling potatoes – and dropping them in the dirt once peeled. The same dirt chickens peck through and children urinate in. With no running water we can only clean them by dropping them into a somewhat clean bucket filled with somewhat clean water to rinse the dirt off. There are no cutting boards or tables around so you have to fully clasp whatever food you are peeling or slicing (and store the knife on the ground while not using it). And then everything gets boiled – I guess that’s been my saving grace. Just taking the food off the fire and transferring it to a bowl was really hard. There are no potholders. A soiled rag was laying in the corner so Theresa used it that to grasp the pot. By the time I managed to refocus her attention from the sick infants and back to my soup, all my broth had boiled away. As I write, a chicken is wandering into the house after pooping on the table. Since there is no money for feed, roaming around scavenging for bugs is the only way farm animals eat. There would need to be a radical re-zoning of the town for everyone to pin in their chickens and goats and ducks and still allow them enough room to scavenge. I’m supposed to be working with health education. I hadn’t realized the people I’d be working with would not be utilizing their own knowledge.