Laundry Time!

As you might have guessed, doing laundry here is not the same as in America. Some people do have washing machines or agitator machines, but we are not among them. So we wash everything by hand. Here's how it works:

Light the gas in the water heater about three hours ahead of time. Add some wood to help the heating process. Note: when we first got here a lot of us were perplexed-wouldn't it be a lot more energy-efficient to keep the water heater on all the time? It would be if we used hot water every day like in America, but gas and water are just too expensive. We heat the water about once a week for laundry and a shower.
Next put laundry detergent in a bucket and fill with water, swishing to get it really foamy. Then dump in clothes and swirl, punch, and agitate by hand. Then let it sit for about 20 minutes. After that I go through each piece one by one looking for stains and scrub them out by rubbing the fabric together vigorously (this is what gives you callouses!)

Then wring as much soap out as possible and throw the item in another bucket. Next comes rinsing. I like to dump everything into the bucket full of clean water and swish a lot, then rinse each item until there are no more bubbles in the rinse water.

Lastly everything goes out on the clothesline to dry.
Here's our line this week before I finished the whites and reds. How long does it take to dry? Well, depends on the weather. The purples dried in an hour because it was really windy at the time but then the rest of it took two days because its been gray. We had to run out at get it all this morning because it started to sleet/rain/snow!

The thing I hadn't expected about all this is how much I enjoy it. Back home I hated doing laundry-its the chore you're always doing that never gets done! I think it might be because it too easy. I can't explain how great it feels after three hours and some aching muscles to stand and look at the clothes flapping in the breeze. To me its the combination of physical labor, focus, quietness, and good ol' hard work that brings an unrivaled sense of accomplishment.