How to Do Laundry: A Step by Step Guide

My silly self thought that I knew how to do laundry before coming here. Gather clothes, carefully place them in the washing machine, add some soap, turn it on, wait a while, remove clothes and hang out to dry or shift in dryer and turn it on. That is so far from the procedure here.

1.       Decide that you have finally dirtied a large enough percentage of your clothing to the point of not wearing it any more to merit washing. This usually takes a while. I’ve come to realize that cleanliness is a relative term, especially considering I spend all day every day working with rocks, dirt, compost, or (when I’m really lucky!) fresh manure.

2.       Find the time. Easier said than done, between working and the weather, which during the rainy season, now, happens to include torrential downpours.  

3.       Gather the goodies and meander your way over to the newly revamped laundry area.

4.       Fill a bucket with water, pour that water into the laundry basins.

5.       Attempt to get your soap to suds. This is a hit or miss shot.

6.       Rub-a-dub-dub, pausing every once in a while to alternatively meditate on the wonders of modern washing machines and how incredibly buff your arms will be after a few washings.

7.       Contemplate a double rinse. Look at how low the sun is, and decide that having soap in it means it will stay cleaner longer… right?

8.       Ring out as much water as possible (again thinking about how useful really buff arms would be at this point).  

9.       Check out the rain clouds/ reflect on rain patterns and realize that there is a 0% chance of your clothing drying over night.

10.   Hang up most of your clothes outside on the line. Pray that the wind isn’t terrible enough to require a trip down hill through the spiky acacia the next day to retrieve it all.

11.   Wait another sunny day until your clothes are dry enough to bring inside, shaking off the ants that apparently claim the laundry line as home territory.

This is the newly redone laundry area. During the course we filled the tires with rammed earth to give us all a more stable base for washing. Success!