Laundry Day

Laundry Day

God, don’t you just hate doing laundry? When you have like five loads and it takes forever? First you have to separate your colors, put the first load in the washer, then 45 mins later move it to the dryer while you add another load to the washer, but wait there’s still a spot from something you spilled on a shirt from the first load, back to the washer with that one… And you lucky if you actually have a washer and dryer in your house, its that much more of a pain if you have to go to a laundry mat, first you have to find quarters, then drive all your dirty smelly laundry there, and be horribly bored while you sit and wait for your clothes to clean…..Well, you’ve got about 2 seconds to stop your whining before I tell you what laundry day is really like. And you better think twice about complaining about having to wash your clothes next time.

First off, Peace Corps clothes are a hell of a lot dirtier than probably anything you’ve ever worn. Here, it’s normal to wear and re-wear your clothes over and over again until there’s a smell that you can’t bear anymore. In addition, there is so much dirt in the air and on the ground, when I go to put on my pajamas at night a cloud of dust flies out from them. And socks, don’t even get me started with those. I wear the same socks and the same shoes I had in the states but somehow here it is impossible for the bottoms of my socks to resemble any form of white color at the end of the day.
So you clothes are filthy and you’re out of clean underwear, what do you do? Based on experiences of other Peru 9 volunteers you have 4 options: 1) Re-wear 2) Turn inside out and re-wear 3) go without 4) wash your damn clothes. You guys would be proud and probably surprised, I’m an option 4 kind of girl. Time to do laundry.
Step one, go to the cuy cage and fetch the really large plastic buckets sitting on top of the cage. Take them to the sink and fill with freezing cold water. Attempt to set on the ground without splashing too much water out. You don’t want to turn the dirt ground into a mud pit. Grab the mini stool that sits you about 6 inches off the ground. Take the powdered detergent and shake generously into bucket #2. Swirl water around with your hands until the detergent is mostly dissolved. Leave bucket #1 with fresh water. Go get all of your dirty stanky clothes from your room. Carry outside trying not to drop any in the dirt on your way. Place first group of clothes in clean bucket #1. Soak ‘em real good, then move to bucket #2. This part is where you get creative. I’m sure there is a real technique to it that any Peruvian could perform in a flash but I’m still novice so we will continue with my method. Swirl clothes around, give them a good shake, then (I know this part is right) take clothes and vigorously rub them against each other. For extensive dirt or stains you can use a sturdy scrub brush. Scrub, rub, swirl, shake until you get tired or bored. Smell clothes to see if the fresh sent of detergent has overcome the stench. If so - move on to the next item, if not - repeat the steps above. When all the clothes in the soapy bucket are “clean” move back to bucket 1 to wash out the soapy water. The amount of soap and dirt in your clothes, determines how often you have to change the water. Usually it’s just around the time the sun has heated the water to a nice warm useable temperature. Too bad, dump it out in the yard and fill back up in the sink.
So your clothes are clean, now what? Turn them inside out and hang them up on the clothesline to dry of course. Yes - hang your underwear, along with the rest of your clothes on the line that your entire family walks by 5-6 times a day. The same line that the entire town can see from the street below. But don’t be embarrassed, your undies are hanging up right next to your dad’s – no big deal right? No, not at all. Why inside out? Teo tells me the sun will burn them otherwise. I think she means the colors will fade if you don’t.
Finally, you’re done. It’s been about 3.5-4 hours, your hands are pruned, and your back is killing from leaning over the buckets. Yeah, that’s right… don’t ever even think about complaining of doing laundry in the states again. 