Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Welcome to Africa column: A lesson that will stick

Sarah reported that one of her coworkers who works with the Lutheran World Federation program in Sudan took back with him after a visit to Nairobi some non-stick pans for cooking at the compound in Southern Sudan where the staff live and work. There are probably a few women who do the cooking and washing of dishes for the staff there. Apparently they got the pans and because they had a dark coating, they thought they were dirty, so they scrubbed them, and now they are a shiny silver with no non-stick surface anymore!

This almost happened to us until we caught it and put a stop to it. We noticed that Jane, our house help, was washing our dishes with a scouring pad. If you go to the grocery store to the aisle where you buy dish-washing implements, there is a large section of nothing but these scouring pads, including the steel kind. Finding something like a dish rag or a softer sort of pad is actually difficult. Washing with a scouring pad is actually the standard method of washing dishes here. They believe that by using something scratchy, you are not only washing but polishing your silverware and metal pots and pans to a shine, which must mean they’re clean! So we noticed this – really the damage that was being done – on things like our expensive set of German-made stainless steel knives. I immediately took away all scouring pads from the house, and we actually had to explain to Jane about how she shouldn’t scratch off the non-stick surface of some pans or bring the silverware to a bright shine.

People in Sudan are less likely to know this as they’ve just come out of a two-decade-long civil war, and luxuries like non-stick pans are very few and far between. Most people are still collecting firewood to prepare their meals with, so who’s concerned about frying an egg easily or making pancakes? But isn’t it funny how we Americans take even simple things like this for granted and just know how to use them?

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