Sink in the dining room?
Washing one’s hands in the toilet before a meal does not sit well with many people, thus the choice to have a sink in the dining area COURTESY PHOTO.
What you need to know:
DECOR. Is it really necessary to have a sink in the dining room? Why do some feel so strongly about it? Gloria Kawuma advises.
While walking through different rooms during the construction of our home, I thought I noticed plumbing provision in the dining room, before I could chew off the plumbers’ ears, my husband and the contractor stepped in and the debate began.
They were not just ganging up on me. They were doing it with shocked expressions on their faces, wondering how this was not basic logic to me!
So I put the plumber to task to give reasons why a sink is a must-have accessory, in this space.
“Madame,” said the plumber, “your guests cannot wash their hands in the kitchen sink mixing with the plates and cups and they definitely cannot walk all the way to the toilet to wash them there, It is like eating food in the toilet.”
This reminded me of the dilemma of the diaper theory in which mothers are told that if you dress your male baby in diapers all the time, chances are high that they will wind up impotent.
My attempts to explain to my people that the water that will run through the toilet sink is the same as the one that will run through the dining room sink, save for the ambiance, were futile. It was not as if I was asking people to wash in the toilet then come and eat food at the table.
Dining room not a must
The reason why having a sink in the dining room became a ‘thing’ is because in African culture, most food is eaten with the hands. Now the idea of having visitors go into the kitchen to wash their hands before the meal is an abomination!
You do not want them going to the scene from which the lovely spread on the table came; what with banana leaves on the floor, spillages of sauce, onion peels, ash, saucepans all over. That had to be private.
As for washing hands in the toilet, toilets are considered one of the filthiest spaces; which is why when in the queue in an unfamiliar place, one usually asks the person coming out of the toilet, ‘Is it clean?’ just to make sure before they go in. So psychologically, trying to cleanse one’s hands in the toilet before a meal does not sit well with many people, hence the provision of a dining room sink.
Needless to say, I lost the battle and I do have a sink in my dining room. Sad really.
