To start with – I want to tell you the story of my first travel to Algeria in the ancient 1980. As a guest, the family of our Algerian contact, Ahmed, invited me to learn making cuscus together with the other women of his house. Well entered their simple but nice place, in a village not so far from Alger, we cooking-people should clean our hands at the spring in the middle of the open courtyard. Women around me, I grabbed the soap first of all, washed my hands, and passed the soap to my neighbor.
With a gentle face, all women around me laughed loud and, first thing first, showed me how to wash my hands. I felt a sort of shame for my European lack of civilization. Their hand-washing ritual took at least a couple of minutes per person and you can say was THOROUGH.
Much like the way we are told by institutions and doctors to wash our hands in these days of Covid19.