American toh (mashed potatoes)

09/13/10
Today was a pretty good day. As I promised, I cooked American toh, mashed potatoes with onion, garlic, salt, pepper and butter that doesn’t need refrigeration! It turned out surprisingly good and my family really liked it. However, they kept asking me if there was any sauce with it, because there is always a sauce made with every meal here. Finally, I felt useful! I also used my cooking as a lesson in sanitation. In a culture where the people use their hands to wipe themselves and they don’t use soap afterwards to clean their hands, you can only imagine the state of sanitation here. There are sights and smells in the market that are not for the faint at heart. Like raw meat and fish hanging on metal hooks, just begging for the flies to come. For that reason, I try to stay away from eating as much meat as possible, but eating chicken here is pretty safe, because it is killed and prepared at home where one can control the nastiness. So, I took my cooking as an opportunity to show my family that it’s proper to wash their hands with soap when preparing food. I also showed them the importance of soaking vegetables in chlorinated water, because the water isn’t safe. And at one point, my sister tried to use the same knife the chicken was killed with to cut up cucumbers! I stopped her right away and asked if the knife was washed with soap. Of course, the answer was no, so I showed her how it should be washed and explained why it needed to be. Later, my sister started preparing the chicken and she asked for the chlorine, so that she could soak it! I was so elated! I really am an education volunteer!