So Annie will be arriving in two days, wow TWO DAYS!!! Like always I left my laundry for the last minute and had this ginormous pile in my bedroom. Instead of sending it all to the laundry lady I decided to sort out things that I could wash by hand and that would dry fast enough for wednesday morning.
I ended up washing 12 shirts, 2 pairs of jeans, 5 sports bras and 7 pairs of socks. Now I know in comparison to my fellow PCV friends who live in the boonies this is nothing because some have to do ALL of their laundry by hand (I def respect you for it), but I was quite happy with myself having washed so much in about an hour and a half. I found out that someone who washes peoples laundry by hand (la lavandera) gets a dollar for each 15 pieces that they wash. ONE DOLLAR PER 15 PIECES. I was half dead after doing just that little bit, and imagine I would´ve only earned about $2.00!!!
I hung everything except the jeans inside because the dog lives outside and I don´t like having dog hair or smell to my freshly HAND WASHED clothes...After hanging everything up there was just no room for the jeans so they were sent outside on the line. I tried to wring out as much water as I could but since my bathroom is like 95% tile I didn´t mind having everything drip-dry. I then went to drop off my laundry and do some errands and when I got back home I realized that all of these clothes were not going to dry in this tiny bathroom and that I needed to hang stuff out around the whole apartment. The only problem was that everything was STILL dripping. (clearly I never do laundry by hand and therefore don´t have proper wringing strategies....)
So I did what anyone would do who doesn´t have a clothes dryer...I got out the hair dryer. I remember my dad used to use the hair dryer to get damp clothes to dry quicker, and would even warm up my clothes on those frigid winter mornings by running the hair dryer over them. It´s like a hand held clothes dryer (that uses a lot of energy and heats up really quick :-/ ..) And as I stood there drying the ends of my shirts so that they wouldn't drip as much I thought about what had happened yesterday evening.
Mayra (Chino´s sister) had an internship with her mom these past couple months and would be returning to regular classes on monday. Her mom had put ALL of her school socks (yes there are specific ones that she has to wear to class) to wash and they wouldn´t be dry by the next morning. They realized this at about 6 pm and decided that the next best plan would be to go out and look for a pair to buy, after all socks only cost about .80 cents/pair. Seeing as it was 6 pm on a Sunday everything was closing or didn´t sell the socks that she needed. So when we went to the Aunts house I mentioned how she should just use a hair dryer. She only needed one pair of socks, and with a hair dryer it would take 10 minutes max to get them dry. She acknowledged my advice but didn´t seem convinced, lol. Instead she ended up asking Mayra´s aunt if any of the cousins had white socks that Mayra could use for class the next morning. Sure enough they found a pair and the problem was solved.
It´s interesting how something so simple ends up being different among cultures and who knows maybe it´s not necessarily a culture thing but more a question of personal choice. At home, we would´ve just thrown the socks in the clothes dryer. Here I would have just gotten the hair dryer. Instead they turned to family members to share a pair of socks. :) :)
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