Today I find myself on the roof with some of my teammates doing laundry. I have actually never enjoyed laundry as much as I do here in India… but I didn't get off to such a great start, and I had to learn to sneak past the 2 Indian women that live upstairs. Otherwise, they will inevitably come and take over.
Below I pasted a blog I meant to post 2 weeks ago…
Week one of the race complete and already a weeks worth of smelly clothes to show for it. So I dig in my pack and find my Dr. Brauners 18-n-1 use soap. I then proceed to find a small bucket, fill it with water and haul it up the stairs to where we are staying. I put my clothes in and scrub. No second bucket to rinse with but hopefully it will be alright. I hang them up to dry and go to bed for the night, glad to have some clean clothes for tomorrow!
Now its morning and go to pull my clothes off the line. What is that smell outside? oh wait… that's my clothes. So my first attempt was a fail. I think they actually smelt worse than when I started… Now what to do? I really can't wear them smelling like this.
So I go downstairs and ask my new friend "D" to show me how to do it. I expected her to show me a few pointers and then leave it to me. Wrong…. She proceeded to wash all my clothes! What a humbling experience! To have someone I barely know wash ALL my smelly laundry. She grabbed 3 buckets filled them with water and a special bar of laundry soap and a brush. After she finished a couple items I tried to jump in and show her that I thought I had the hang of it but she wouldn't have it. The language barrier kept her from explaining why I couldn't do it but her body language told me all I needed to know, so I backed up and watched her wash my clothes. I wish she would have let me help but either way I was so grateful for the lesson. And actually it was quite a fun experience. Turns out the whole street wanted to watch. We had quite the audience and they would chuckle here and there and discuss it back and forth. I can only imagine what they were saying about the foreigner trying to wash her clothes. hahaha. I couldn't help but laugh at the whole experience.
And now I can say that I'm a washing machine!…literally 🙂
