Washing Clothes By Hand

Since electricity is so expensive (and similarly, so are washing machines), pretty much everyone here washes their own clothes by hand. I’ve brought enough clothes so that I only have to do mine once a week (I could probably get by with twice every three weeks, but it’s easier to have a day to do it). I’ve done it five times so far, and I’d like to think I’m getting better at it.

Normally, I take about two hours to go through the clothes I wore in a week (plus any sheets or towels). Some of my friends here say it takes them only 30 minutes to an hour to do theirs. They laugh at me when we talk about how long it takes. I have, however, been getting better and sometimes I finished within an hour and a half. I was pretty proud that week.

Anyway, it’s a pretty simple process, involving three bins or buckets. The first two with soapy water (using the laundry soap I brought from home) and the last filled with just water.

No one really showed me how to do this, though Maka helped a bit the first time and I have had many offers of help from the ladies of the house (which I have politely declined, since I want to do the work myself). My first step is to put about 5-6 items in the first bucket and the soak them and wring the out several times. This gets all the dust out (the water is very brown by the end of all my clothes) as well as any other sweat or other non-stuck-in-there dirt. When one piece of clothing is finished, I transfer it to the next bucket. For socks, I put one on each hand and scrub them with each other. They are often very dirty and I made the mistake of only bringing white socks.

The second bucket is for spot cleaning. I do all the trouble spots (the waist, the collar, any places where I spilled food, etc.) by taking a part of the clothes in each hand and rubbing fast. Once finished here, I wring out the dirty water and put the clothes in the third bucket to rinse them. I do the same thing with the socks as I did before. I usually have an assembly line going for all of my clothes, transferring one set of clothes to the next bucket as they are finished. When they clothes have been in the third bucket for some time, I wring them out and hang them up.

Since it is so hot here and not very humid, the clothes generally dry within a few hours (a bit less for the thin material and a bit long for thicker things).

I also scrub my shoes (they get very dusty here) at the same time.

I’ve found that washing clothes can be very time consuming (there are clothes hung out almost every day at my house), but the work is somewhat rewarding. That being said, I probably won’t be doing this a lot at home, but maybe if I am bored and need to fill a day (and want to save a bit on the electricity bill).