Washing Laundry

So I thought that every now and then I would put up a blog of what my life is like here.  As some of you may have guessed, I do not have a washing machine here in Ethiopia.  Tragic, I know.  So. . .that means I get to hand wash my clothes.  It is a process, let me tell you.

I choose to wash my clothes in the bathtub because it is easier to fill up the water buckets there and I can just dump out the water right there when I need to get more water.  If I wash them outside, like the habeshas do, then I have to lug water around and dump it out on the ground and then I end up walking around in puddles.  

Process:

1. Fill up the wash basin with soap and water.
2. Fill up two smaller buckets with only water.
3. Scrub the article of clothing in the first wash basin. Making sure to get all of the dirty areas and any stains that you may have.
4. Wring out all of the excess water and soap.
5. Dunk the article of clothing into the first of the two smaller buckets.  Dunk vigurously to try to rinse out the soap.
6. Wring out all of the excess water.
7. Dunk the article of clothing into the second small bucket of water.  This is your final rinse.
8. Wring out all of the excess water.
9. Admit to yourself that you will never rinse out all of the soap.
10. Turn the article of clothing inside out so when you hang it outside on the clothes line the sun will not fade it.

After you wash a few items of clothing you must dump out the water, rinse the buckets, and refill them because the water gets really dirty.  It is very dusty here and even if your clothes look clean, as soon as you put them in the bucket of water you realize how dirty they actually were.  

Sheets, jeans, towels, and sweatshirts are the hardest for me.  They are really hard to wring out.  But plus side, I am building arm muscles!!

I don’t exactly love washing my clothes by hand but I put on praise and worship music while I am doing it and it gives me an opportunity to praise God.  While I am praising Him during this time, I usually end up thanking Him that I have clothes to wash.