There are many things to protect oneself against around here: heat, dust, sun, theft, mosquitos, traffic accidents and, last and smallest, but still not least: micro-organisms.
Apparently, it is very dangerous to eat untreated vegetables in this country. When I had just arrived here, Sandrine made me promise to wash my vegetables. “With soap”, she added. This didn’t sound very appealing to me, but I didn’t want to ignore the advice of a local, and that is how I ended up putting washing-up liquid on my paprika the first time I cooked. This added a distinct taste to my pasta dish.
I decided that some water would suffice to clean my vegetables. And anyway: it is only natural and healthy to allow your body to build up some resistance. However, during one of our communal Friday’s lunches, the topic was brought up again. ‘You can get very ill from the parasites on the vegetables. You really should wash them well’, I was told by a colleague. ‘Yes, they sometimes use the vegetable patch as a public toilet here’, another colleague added, just when I was about to take a bite from my salad. The advice I got was to use eau de javel to wash vegetables. Eau de javel sounds rather sophisticated, just like eau de cologne, but it’s just French for bleach. ‘Don’t they use that for abortions around here?’, a third colleague asked. My appetite, which had bravely survived a discussion on female circumcision, almost died on me by then, especially when I realised that my goat cheese salad did taste like bleach.
My colleagues reached consensus on that bleach might be used for illegal abortions, but that it would probably be drunk in large quantities then, and for the vegetables you only use a few drops. ‘You do need to rinse it well with water afterwards, though’. That sounded like a good idea indeed. But that made me wonder: usually tap water is dangerous, because of the bacteria that might be in there. Apparently, that is not a problem around here, because water is cleaned and treated before it is sent through the pipelines. ‘If it does get affected, it happens along the way. The sewage and the drinking water pipelines sometimes cross each other, and when they get rusty, they might mix’, the colleague who also made the comment about the local toilet habits, explained, while I tried to swallow the last lettuce left on my plate. ‘You’re more likely to get ill from all the stuff they add to the water to make it clean’. Right, stuff like bleach, perhaps?
That evening, being haunted by images of villagers pooing on vegetables, I bought a bottle of bleach. Later at night, I discussed it with a colleague over dinner in an Italian restaurant. We both felt reluctant to use the bleach. While pricking in a pizza, we tried to come up with all sorts of arguments why we wouldn’t need to use eau de javel: that she had lived in Ghana and had never been ill (well, accept once, when she was in complete agony for a week); that it is good to get some resistance to the local bacteria; that getting food poisoning is just part of the deal when you’re in Africa; that you can also get ill from shaking someone’s hand; that it is impossible to protect oneself against every possible threat. Then, she made a sensible suggestion: ‘you just use that bleach to clean your toilet’. And perhaps I might invite all local farmers to make use of my spotless toilet then, to make sure the veggies are safe.
Apparently, it is very dangerous to eat untreated vegetables in this country. When I had just arrived here, Sandrine made me promise to wash my vegetables. “With soap”, she added. This didn’t sound very appealing to me, but I didn’t want to ignore the advice of a local, and that is how I ended up putting washing-up liquid on my paprika the first time I cooked. This added a distinct taste to my pasta dish.
I decided that some water would suffice to clean my vegetables. And anyway: it is only natural and healthy to allow your body to build up some resistance. However, during one of our communal Friday’s lunches, the topic was brought up again. ‘You can get very ill from the parasites on the vegetables. You really should wash them well’, I was told by a colleague. ‘Yes, they sometimes use the vegetable patch as a public toilet here’, another colleague added, just when I was about to take a bite from my salad. The advice I got was to use eau de javel to wash vegetables. Eau de javel sounds rather sophisticated, just like eau de cologne, but it’s just French for bleach. ‘Don’t they use that for abortions around here?’, a third colleague asked. My appetite, which had bravely survived a discussion on female circumcision, almost died on me by then, especially when I realised that my goat cheese salad did taste like bleach.
My colleagues reached consensus on that bleach might be used for illegal abortions, but that it would probably be drunk in large quantities then, and for the vegetables you only use a few drops. ‘You do need to rinse it well with water afterwards, though’. That sounded like a good idea indeed. But that made me wonder: usually tap water is dangerous, because of the bacteria that might be in there. Apparently, that is not a problem around here, because water is cleaned and treated before it is sent through the pipelines. ‘If it does get affected, it happens along the way. The sewage and the drinking water pipelines sometimes cross each other, and when they get rusty, they might mix’, the colleague who also made the comment about the local toilet habits, explained, while I tried to swallow the last lettuce left on my plate. ‘You’re more likely to get ill from all the stuff they add to the water to make it clean’. Right, stuff like bleach, perhaps?
That evening, being haunted by images of villagers pooing on vegetables, I bought a bottle of bleach. Later at night, I discussed it with a colleague over dinner in an Italian restaurant. We both felt reluctant to use the bleach. While pricking in a pizza, we tried to come up with all sorts of arguments why we wouldn’t need to use eau de javel: that she had lived in Ghana and had never been ill (well, accept once, when she was in complete agony for a week); that it is good to get some resistance to the local bacteria; that getting food poisoning is just part of the deal when you’re in Africa; that you can also get ill from shaking someone’s hand; that it is impossible to protect oneself against every possible threat. Then, she made a sensible suggestion: ‘you just use that bleach to clean your toilet’. And perhaps I might invite all local farmers to make use of my spotless toilet then, to make sure the veggies are safe.
Jakkes! Bleek door je eten, dat klinkt heel smerig. Krijg je daar geen brandend maagzuur van???
BeantwoordenVerwijderen