Time for an interesting blog a little off topic from the rest...Laundry! This word in my vocab is an evil evil word that I try to avoid at all costs. Example: my semi automatic "washing machine" has been broke for 2 1/2 weeks, leaving me to wear clothes more than once before washing. Ask my mother, I don't mess with laundry, and if I get to the point of cleaning my clothes they never make it out of the laundry basket and hung up.
But...since I sweat constantly here in the tropics I figured it wasn't appropriate to continue wearing clothes that haven't been washed in weeks. I broke down and decided to dedicated my Sunday to washing my clothes...BY HAND. Thankfully, during my first 8 weeks in Grenada I lived with a host family who taught me the correct way to wash clothes by hand. Never in my life did I think it was that complicated to wash some clothes by hand but man was I wrong when the next day I woke up so sore I was begging for ibuprofen.
Step 1:
Set up three buckets outside, each with water filled 2/3 full in the bucket. We have 5 gallon buckets here and I wouldn't suggest using anything smaller. Bucket one should have detergent while bucket two and three are left to remain just water.
Step 2:
Grab your article of clothing and dip in bucket one. Now its hard to explain the exact method of scrubbing so I will attach some photos. Its more or less swift movements with both hands, back and forth, causing the clothes to rub up against each other. The more force you use, the cleaner your clothes get. Each piece of clothing should take about 5 minutes of scrubbing. 20 piece of clothes X 5 minutes of scrubbing = 100 minutes of scrubbing. See where I get the ibuprofen addiction from?
Step 3:
Dip clothes in bucket two where clean water is while lightly scrubbing clothes to get soap out. I sometimes let my sit in that water for a few minutes.
Step 4:
Move clothes to final bucket of clean water and rinse clean.
Step 5:
Hang your clothes on the line outside so the beautiful tropical heat can sun dry your clothes. While of course fading them out. You can always get new ones back in the States. ;)
My hard work finally finished!
I hope this post inspires you to try cleaning your clothes by hand at least once. But if you would just like to live through me vicariously, then I hope this post leads you to go and hug your washer and dryer in appreciation.
20 days til I'm home Missouri!!!!!!!
