Dirty Clothes No More (for now...)

22:50 3 March 2009

13 socks, 10 shirts, 7 pairs of pants, 4 pairs of boxers, 3 sweaters, 1 towel, 4 hours, 3 blisters, and 1 sore back later I am done with my laundry. Out of all the chores that are more difficult here than I was used to, laundry by far ranks as the most annoying, physically difficult, and most loathed. Usually I wash a few of my clothes at a time, one pair of pants, a shirt and a few boxers and socks for the clothes of the next week but every now and then I have to do one big set of pretty much all my laundry. This sucks. While I am lucky that my family has a laundry “machine” (quotations because the machine is really more of a laundry spin-a-rounder than something that actually cleans clothes), I still have to get all the water, heat all the water, operate the washing machine (shockingly difficult to get it to work) wring out the “clean” clothes with the dirty soapy water that will be used for all of my laundry, rinse all the “clean” clothes in the basin of slightly less dirty water, wring them out again, and hang them out to dry. The really loathsome part is the bifurcated wringing process that leaves my hands red and sore for days afterwards and makes me wish I had the calluses of some of the older ajays (respectful term for older women in Kyrgyz) I have seen washing.

Nevertheless, it is certainly good to have my clothes as clean as they will get for the time being, and seeing the good half inch of dirt at the bottom of the washing machine when I poured out the water was simultaneously disgusting for how dirty my clothes must have been and satisfying for how much less dirt they contain now. But seriously, if anyone has heard of a drop off laundry service in my village, let me know. Come to think of it, it would be a great business proposition for some of my neighbors…