Wash that clothes...

October 2, 2009
Let it never again be said that I am an unproductive person before breakfast. In the past this may have been true; no more! Of course, the fact that we get up before 6 and don’t eat breakfast until after 9 might have something to do with that, but it’s negligible. Really.

So, I went for my first run today as the sun rose! At an altitude of over 4000 feet, I think I did pretty good! First off, I managed to go out, turn randomly, running down unknown streets because while I may not understand all those cool little hieroglyphics things they call letters, I can understand the maps posted on most “corners,” and I have certain landmarks that I’ve memorized: the internet shop (how else would you read this?!), the Christian market shop (a little far to walk, but so worth it!), and the butchery (use your imagination. really.). So as long as I can make it back to one of these locations, I’m great! And I totally did. Honestly, as long as I don’t cross a major road, I know I’m fine getting back to the house!

Later, I decided to do some laundry. Well, you probably have quite the wrong picture in your head when you hear laundry. To your imagination, a large, probably white, beautiful machine comes into view, with this cylinder in which the clothes magically enter dirty and come out clean, at just the touch of a button! Or maybe you’re a little old school, and you begin to see a washboard and bucket. But you’re still not there. We wash using our bare hands. Ok, well, we use soap (it comes in bars) and a scrub brush. Not even kidding. I’m getting good at it too; the girls told me so!

So, you wet your clothes (with water you pulled up from the well) and squat (flat-footed; I still use the softball catcher’s position on the balls of my feet, but I’m trying to change!) and one at a time you lather them good with that soap. It smells like lemons. Mmmmmm.... Anyway, after lathering, you scrub the durable ones (jeans, shorts, t-shirts, whatever can handle it) with a brush. Then they’re all wringed out, and over and over and over you rinse in bucket after bucket after bucket of water. You think working out at the Y is hard?! Try washing just half a “load” of clothes; your biceps will swell, your back will ache, and your calves will burn as they’ve never burned before! If you noticed that I seem to be wearing the same clothes in many pictures, they really weren’t all taken on the same day; I can wear my clothes for... well, I’d tell you but then my parents would think they’d failed me as a child, so I’ll leave that to your imagination!

But today wasn’t just clothes. Ok, imagine big old area rugs. Yeah, those maroon ones, the tan ones, the green ones, whatever comes to mind, with their pretty floral prints. Now, it’s bad enough to clean them by hand, but today we washed two of them- by hand. Not even kidding. It took six of us girls to get them done. We wet, soap, lather, scrub, rinse, soap, lather, scrub, rinse, scrape, rinse, hold vertically, rinse, rinse, rinse. It was actually a lot of fun, because with a job that big, water gets tossed on each other, soap suds are flying off brushes into hair, and feet are slipping on those beautiful white bubbles! We’re pretty much awesome, I know. You WISH you could wash area rugs by hand. Ok, probably not even a little bit. But if your steam cleaner goes out, you know who to call. On second thought ;)....

So, that went on for two and a half hours (breakfast was about an hour late!), and then we dragged them up 3 floors of stairs to the roof! And there they lay now, basking in the sunlight/clouds, laughing at the intense work they caused us. Thankfully, I think it will be another 3 months before that happens again. Unfortunately, if you do the calendar math, that puts us in January. When it’s really really really cold. Actually, I’m not going to think about that now. It makes my fingers hurt. And I may never purchase an area rug for my home. Unless it comes with a steam cleaner. Then, maybe...