The Laundry Experience

For about a week, I had been asking my sister to teach me how to wash my clothes by hand.

Apparently, one of the conditions for being a host family for Peace Corps trainees is that the family will teach the trainee to wash his/her clothes by hand. I don’t really recall why I urgently needed to do laundry, but there was a need and my sister agreed to teach me.

So first thing last Sunday morning, I put all my dirty laundry in a five gallon pail, filled it with water, and tossed in a handful of Deja laundry detergent. Deja might be the most potent substance known to mankind and can get anything out of anything (whether or not we’re talking about clothes. It can just, in general, get anything out of anything). My sister said that we should wait a while before washing our clothes because the water is really cold in the morning and that it will be more comfortable to wash in the afternoon.

I went for a stroll with some friends and returned to clean my clothes. But my sister went to the hospital to visit my uncle (or to tend the cows while my mom went to the hospital). Either way, nobody was home. So I had to pick it up with a little help from a fellow trainee.

I would describe the experience, overall, as a success. Here is my step-by-step process for washing clothes by hand. Keep in mind that I have only done this twice so far. It has worked for me, though — and no one has complained that my clothes smell like soap. (The second time, my sister gave me a few pointers)
Step 1: Turn on iPod to something with a good beat. The first time, I listened to Eminem. The second time, Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Step 2: Take a dirty garment out of dirty water and place on laundry rock. Generously apply laundry soap.

Step 3: Work soap into clothes on rock. Repeat. Make sure that you are using your entire body to do this, so that it can double as a workout.

Step 4: Rinse clothes. For me, this takes a lot longer than it does for my sister — like exponentially longer.

Step 5: Continue rinsing. I add an additional step here. For someone with experience in doing laundry by hand, this step is unnecessary. You should already be putting the clothes on the line. But because it takes me so long to get the soap out, I figured I would add another step here.

Step 6: Place on clothesline.

Step 7: Repeat Steps 1-6 with the rest of the clothes from your pail.

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*Laundry tip:
When washing boxers you purchase at Machaneh Yehuda (open-air market in Jerusalem), expect them to bleed a bit. Even if you bought them more than two years ago and have washed them several times in a washing machine, they will still bleed. Now I have a red-spotted white t-shirt and several pairs of socks with red dots on them. I guess you could call me "Man of the Manchas."
I got much better at the whole laundry thing the second time around. I plan to continue improving.