rude, prude, or paranoid?

Out in the community today, a meeting with local leaders and then did some training on an app we have developed for our Community Based Rehabilitation workers, and suddenly it was lunchtime.  Not a big fan of lunch, especially when it’s so hot, so always a bit nervous that I will offend by saying no.  Out with these important folk, I felt I had no choice.  By the time I got to the queue, I was last.   Hmm.  There were two ladies hovering around the food, I felt one was the cook, the other another guest.  There were evidently no plates left, so the ‘cook’ grabbed a plate from the ‘to wash’ pile, the other piled on a bunch of food.  I was actually thinking oh good, almost none left, when the other lady, evidently co-cook, handed me this massive plateful I had to take it.  The cook, seeing I was a westerner, helpfully grabbed be a spoon, also from the ‘to wash’ pile.

OK, OK, think quick now.  I thanked them, headed off to the tables, and put down the food.  And sorted of slinked away.  In a country where 9 out of 10 folk are HIV+, was I right not to go with the used plate and spoon?