ABSTRACT
Ruth abruptly stops picking beans, jumps to her feet, swiftly brushes the dirt from her dress and marches across the small courtyard to proudly pose in front of a little reed table: ‘Without REFLECT I would never have known about drying racks.’ I try hard to conceal my disappointment while Ruth continues to enthuse: ‘This is where everything must go, the pots, the plates, the knives, everything. You wash it and then you put it there on top until it’s dry. If it’s not dry and you eat from it, that’s it, you fall ill. That is what I learned in REFLECT.’ Any reader familiar with the smart housewives who routinely appear on Western television screens to marvel at the life-transforming effects of a new dishwashing liquid will have a fairly accurate image of the way Ruth strutted around the shaky construction upholding her meagre collection of as yet unwashed cups and plates.
