Hand-washing Clothes

The other day, I washed my clothes for the second time at site, and I had so much laundry I literally spend the entire morning doing my laundry.  Luckily, the sun was out and we actually had water so that I could wash my clothes.  It's quite the process.

First you have to pull out all the whites, put them in the first big basin of water, then scrub each by hand in classic washer-woman style (i.e. rubbing back and forth between your hands, using the flat of your fingers between the first two joints as the scrubbing surface), putting a little bit of dry detergent on the places that need it, work it to a lather, rinse twice, then throw in the next big basin of water.  You do this for all your whites, then you add all your colors to the original basin, wash them all the same way.  Once everything is in the second basin, you rinse them all in there, squeeze all the water out, and then put them in the last basin, where you rinse them again, ring them out, and hang them up on the line to dry.  I did this for an entire morning, until I had no grip left in my hands because my arm and wrist muscles were so tired.  Not only that, I gave myself the equivalent of rug burn on my fingers from rubbing them raw with the friction of scrubbing.

My host mom told me there is a woman nearby who washes laundry if I don't like washing mine, but strangely enough, except for the rug burn feeling, I like hand-washing my clothes. Everything gets so much cleaner and it's a peaceful and satisfying process.  I know a lot of volunteers pay other people to wash their clothes, but I liked doing it and I think I will continue to do it while I'm here.  I did learn that I will not wait until I have a ridiculous amount of laundry to wash my clothes, because my hands can't take it, and it takes so long to dry during rainy season!