Laundry Day!

As an American there are many day to day activities which hither too I have taken for granted. No more! Case in point; laundry. While I was in the Novitiate in California I use to do my laundry in my sleep. I would put the clothes in the washing machine and go to bed. At some point in the middle of the night I would get up and transfer the clothes to the dryer. In the morning I would awaken to clean clothes! No such luck here in Haiti.

Laundry for me in Haiti begins with carrying my clothes to the courtyard. We have both metal and plastic basins for clothes washing; they are about two feet in diameter and eight inches deep. Next I transfer water from the cistern to two basins with a bucket; one for washing and one for rinsing. The laundry soap is a white ball about the size of a tennis ball, it conveniently fits in the palm of my hand. Once I have everything set up it’s just a matter of hand washing all the laundry and hanging it on the clothes line to dry. Needless to say this process seems to take an inordinate amount of time not to mention a fair amount of hand strength.

Please don’t miss understand, we have excellent laundry facilities at our house here in Port au Prince. As I travel through Port au Prince and into the neighboring villages I have witnessed people doing their laundry where ever water seems to be available. Laundry in the tent camps is done in five gallon paint buckets. Laundry in the country side is done in a pond by the side of the road. On one occasion I saw a woman doing laundry after a rainy night in what I would have considered a “mud puddle”. Trees, bushes, and fences have been known to serve as clothes lines. Necessity is the Mother of invention …and nothing is simple in Haiti!