Washer Women

*Our internet has been down about 2/3 of the time we've tried to post, so these are coming a bit late. Sorry for the delay.*

When we first got to Seva Kendra and checked out our new home, we noticed a mysterious large red bucket in the bathroom. At first, we used it for an awkward trash can. One week later, when we started to smell, we discovered that what we thought was a bucket was actually a small washing machine. We've been hand washing our clothes ever since. 

At first, it was tedious. We'd dump all our dirty clothes on the wet bathroom floor, put some laundry detergent in the washing machine, fill it with water, then scrub the heck out of every single piece. After rinsing and wringing, we'd hang our clothes on the bars in the bathroom and on our bed posts to dry. The whole process took hours. 

The current state of our room

Luckily, we've had some time to perfect our laundry skills. One of the things we've  learned is that, contrary to American detergent, Indian detergent requires simple soaking and maybe a little bit scrunching to get the clothes clean. We've also become acutely aware of how colors bleed, especially with the clothes we buy off the street. I now have several multi-colored shirts because of this phenomena. Besides that, though, our laundry style hasn't changed much - if you were to compare the first time we did laundry here to the process I used today, it's pretty much the same. The clothes are soaked, rinsed, wrung and hung to dry. It still takes hours, maybe days, depending on available bed post space and rate of drying. 

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. The long laundry process has taught me a lot about domesticity, planning ahead, and to be thankful for the glorious modern washing machine. 

Now go change the load around.