Laundry

Sabrina had told me we wouldn't have a washer or dryer in our apartment. No worries, I thought. I've spent time at laundry mats before. But when I got here, I found one slight problem: there aren't any laundry mats, at least any that I've seen. Hmmm. So like a good procrastinator, I ignored the problem and let my dirty clothes pile up. Maybe I was waiting for a laundry mat to magical appear, or a laundry fairy to swoop in and clean all my clothes. But neither dream came true. And in a country as humid as Brazil, I knew I couldn't get away with recycling my shirts and shorts any longer. So I resorted to the sink.

In my defense, I think this sink is actually made to serve as a "washing machine." It has a big basin and a ribbed scrubber washboard thing attached. It's in the kitchen, but it's not the main sink we use for dishes. It's just kinda off to the side in the corner, waiting for a purpose. So with my first load in hand, I plugged the drain, poured in a little detergent and began filling it up. There weren't any water temperature choices. Brazilian sinks don't have hot and cold knobs -- just one that spews out the water, which is somewhat warmed by the sun. I debated boiling some water for my whites, but that seemed pointless considering the situation. Coolish is fine.

I mixed the detergent around the water with my hand, then threw in the clothes. Now what, I wondered. I kinda swooshed them around like the washing machine would, hoping it would get out the smells and dirt and stains and clean them. Unsatisfied with this method, I decided to try out the washboard. I'd never used one before, because, seriously, who has. I tried to remember every pioneer movie I'd ever seen. Up down up down scrub scrub scrub. Next shirt. Scrub scrub scrub. I remembered that when my sister and I were little we would pretend to be peasants or orphans and had to wash our clothes like that. Now, here, I am actually doing it out of necessity.

Is this how you do it?

After each load was washed, I experimented with the best way to rinse off the soap and ring out the item. Let's just say I'm still perfecting my moves. I took all the still-dripping apparel to our balcony, where we have one clothes rack. After hanging our shirts, shorts, boxers, undies and bras ever-so strategically on the wire, it was full and I had to move on to the plastic chairs and later the railing. I can just see our neighbors across the way shaking their heads and asking "What are those crazy gringos up to this time?"

At least we only air our clean laundry.

Maybe someday I'll look back on this as a fun cultural experience -- but today it just sucked. My back hurt from bending over. My pants were soaking from splashed water. Plus I'm not even sure how clean everything really is. Back home, my afternoon spend "doing laundry" was mostly just waiting around for the load to dry. Here, it took more than an hour of hard labor. At least it was an adventure, right?