laundry

I am very thankful that our house has a washing machine, and that we have electricity to run it.  It has been a learning experience working with this machine, partly because it is a twin-tub (which I was not familiar with) and partly because I have had to learn what to do to get my clothes as clean as possible.  For those of you who, like me, had never been introduced to the wonders of the twin-tub, basically it has one tub for washing, and then you transfer the laundry into the next tub for spinning.  

To start out, I have to manually fill the washing machine with water.  I haven’t counted how many refills from a 2-liter water jug this requires.  All I know is that it takes a while!  Thankfully there is a small sink next to the washer which means I don’t have to walk back and forth to get water.  Washing in hot water is even more complicated – I usually turn on the shower and let the hot water run into a large bucket (it usually takes about 1 ½- 2 buckets of water to fill the washer) and then adding a kettle-full of boiled water.  I always wash Elijah’s cloth diapers in hot water, but the rest of my laundry is washed in cold water.   

Once the washer is full (and hopefully turned on,  if the power is strong enough) the wash cycle lasts 15 minutes, and then I have to switch the valves over so that the dirty, soapy water drains out. I cannot spend more than 15 minutes away from the washer because it doesn’t switch automatically, nor will it switch off – it will keep running “dry” if I am not there – wasting a lot of electricity, and probably bad for the motor as well!  Because I have to stay so close to the washer, I find it hard to get anything else done at the same time, including caring for Elijah.  I try to run one load of laundry every day during the week, so that I don't fall behind on the washing, because if I have to run more than one load in a day - that’s a long morning spent in front of the washing machine!  The only day that I avoid washing laundry is Thursday because a lovely Zambian lady named Asnet comes to clean the house for me that day, and the washing machine drains into the shower which she has freshly scrubbed!

Once the laundry has completed one wash cycle, I have found that residue from the detergent remains, so I always run it through another wash cycle without soap as a second rinse.  So again, I fill the washer up with water, wait 15 minutes, and then drain it when it is finished.

Some loads of laundry require extra work.  Elijah's diapers, for example, I have already mentioned that I wash them in hot water rather than cold.  (I also use disposable liners in his cloth diapers which definitely cuts down on the mess!)  I pre-soak the soiled diapers in a little bleach for 5-10 minutes, then wring them out, scrub out the stains by hand using detergent paste, and then add them to the rest of the load and wash as normal.  I also do this when I am washing our "whites", so that things will stay really white in spite of the Zambian mud!

Once rinsed, the next task is to transfer the laundry into the second tub for spinning.  This is a smaller tub, so I have found that I usually have to split the load into at least two portions in order to fit, and spin them separately.  Each spin takes at least 5 minutes, or longer depending on how thoroughly the washer has spun it and whether I need to run it through again.  Unfortunately, the spinner really doesn't work effectively at all, and my laundry is usually just as soaking wet as it was before I spun it!  So now I've given up on the spinner and I just wring each piece of laundry out by hand.  Thankfully living in such a hot, sunny climate means that my laundry usually dries on the clothesline within a few hours. 

It may not be as convenient as most washing machines, but at least it works (for the most part), and it does save me having to wash everything by hand! And when I think of all the local Zambian women who often have to walk for many kilometres to carry water home and then wash everything by hand - I am very grateful for the conveniences that I am blessed with.