The Big Wash...

It was inevitable that I would eventually have to learn to hand wash my clothes. I didn’t think it would necessarily be difficult, but figured it would underscore just how much I take the modern day conveniences of a washer and dryer for granted. Now, my host family does have a washer (no dryer), and we were told that if your family wants to wash your clothes for you in the machine, that is fine. But three words of advice: 1) you do NOT use their machine, let them use it for you (you break it, you buy them a new one which would be several months pay!), 2) learn how to do your laundry by hand anyway, since 99% of permanent sites do not have a machine, so you will eventually have to do it by hand, and 3) no matter what, you buy the soap. Taking clothing inventory, it is clear that I over-packed some things and under-packed others. I am desperately in need of clean underwear and socks right now. I have been telling Tanya that I need to do wash, but the weather has been bad (too cold), so she has been pushing me off. I was planning for a wash day on Sunday, but she was convinced that the weather would get better this week. (I am anxious to find out how they hang clothes out to dry in the winter). Today, at the end of my clean clothes stash I told her we were going to have to do wash today. She told me to buy soap, so I asked what kind. She pulled out a box, but told me to make sure I did not get “Automat”, but get the “hand wash” version [notice in the lower left corner, the symbol for hand washing].

I wrote down all of the pertinent info and stopped at the market after school to make my purchase. A small (400 gram) box of Tide was 8 hrv (US $1.00). As I walked home, the sun was out, but it was still a little chilly, no matter what though, our wash date was on. The first step is to fill large bowls with warm water at a big sprinkle of soap. Add the clothes and mix it around like you are kneading bread dough and rub the dirtiest parts together with the ball of your hands and then mix some more.

[Note to self: replace underwear with holes on a more regular basis, and especially before host mom uses them to teach you how to do hand washing- even after you ask her to demonstrate with the shirts and that you will figure out the underwear on your own!] You do this mixing for about 5 minutes, and then you let the whole bowl sit for one hour (mixing occasionally).

After an hour you mix again and wring out the excess water. Now you transfer the clothes into the bathtub and plug it to keep the water in to work the clothes again. Then you get your bowl again, fill 1/3 with clean warm water, and do a fresh rinse, wringing it out every time. Eventually, the water wrings clean enough. Then, you take all of the clothes into the backyard to hang them on the line. We will see how long it takes for them to dry…

As of press time, they still hang in the yard. I expect they will either freeze tonight or at least not dry much more. I will leave them up tomorrow and take down in the afternoon when I get home.

All in all, I would call my introduction to handwashing a success. But, next time I’ll do my own skivvies, thanks.