Sometimes it is really difficult to learn how to wash your clothes. Your mother may teach you how to separate your darks from the lights, the reds from the whites, and to take out the delicates. She may also tell you how much consists of a good sized load, how much detergent to use and which cycle to set the washing machine on. That is really challenging. Then you have to remember to get the clothes out and stick them in the dryer before they sit there too long and begin to smell. Which would mean that you have to wash them all over again. The worst part is folding them and matching socks together when somehow the dryer eats one sock. How do socks go missing from the laundry pile to the washing machine to the dryer? Seriously.
Well, washing clothes was challenging at home. I do not even know how to describe it here. It is a whole new level of appreciation for machines and buttons. All over the world I have learned how to wash my clothes by hand. In India, it consisted of beating my clothes on the ground. In Nepal, it took a lot of pumping from the water pump. In Africa, I learned how to scrub the dirt out of my socks and make them white again.
Tip: You rub with your palms, not with your fingertips. You rub and you rub hard.
After being gone for 9 months, you would think that I would know how to wash my own clothes by hand by now. Well, sometimes there is a disadvantage to being gone from machines. I do not see it as a problem, I see it as a huge advantage and energy saver for my method of washing.
In Tanzania, we are at the beginning of rainy season. It has rained 18 out of the 25 days we have been here and it rains hard. At first, this created a huge problem for how to dry my laundry. It rains as soon as I put them up on the line to dry. Why even bother washing?
That is where my creativity and energy saving ideas began. So let me give you the run down on how I have been washing my clothes all month.
Step 1: Gather together all of your clothes, bucket, laundry detergent and find the water source.
Step 2: Fill up your bucket with water so that your clothes will be covered and can be scrubbed around. Pour in detergent.
Step 3: Start scrubbing your clothes. A bar of soap really helps in this process as well. Make sure you scrub your clothes together between your hands with your palms. This creates more friction and it is not as tiring.
Step 4: When your clothes are really soapy, take them out of the water and go hang them on the line.
Step 5: Dump out your bucket and you are completed.
Step 6: Wait for the rain to come and rinse out your clothes.
Step 7: When there has been enough sunlight to dry your clothes, take them off the line. Sometimes this takes a couple of days, depending on how often it rains.
Step 8: Wear your new clean clothes!
Energy saving washing machine.
This month I am thankful for rain.
One time I washed my clothes and I was in a desperate need for clothes so I was washing them when it began to rain, and it rained hard. I was wearing my last clean clothes. Well, it happened to be my only dry clothes as well. Thank you team mates for sharing so that I could be warm and not catch a fever. This session of washing was when it rained for 2 days in a row and my clothes were on the line for 3 days.
Another time of washing I put my clothes up extra soapy and it did not rain. At least until that night anyways.
Some times you just have to become really creative with how you wash your clothes. It is really fun, because every month, the locals will look at you and laugh. They will be sure to let you know that you are doing it wrong. I have been blessed a lot this year and have only washed my clothes by hand for 4 months. Some months I was blessed with a washing machine, and once a dryer, others washed my clothes and team mates or contacts would wash them for me. It has been a lot easier than what I thought it would be like. In fact, I did not even think about what washing clothes would be like because it is something you just stick in the washing machine, push the button and forget all about, at least until the buzzer goes off.
Mama, when I get home, I will be happy to stick everyone's laundry in the machine, pour the detergent and push the button. I will even be happy to transfer the clothes from the washing machine to the dryer!
