July 9, 2004
"Laundry Lesson"
by Sean McCarthy

Today I learned a lesson that my grandma will be proud of. Finally, at the age of 22, I learned how to wash my own clothes. I’ve been here for over a month with only about 3 pairs of clothes, and my white shirts progressed from a bright white, to a pleasant khaki color, and were finally approaching a creative brown tye-dye look. So this morning I handed my laundry over to the women’s group so the could try to save me from my own filth

By the afternoon, I hardly recognized the clothes that Madame Albertine handed back to me. The women somehow made my clothes cleaner and fresher smelling that I could ever accomplish back home with a washer and dryer.

So during siesta, I tried to finish the job with the items I would be embarrassed for my mom to wash. I was behind the well with my clothes in a soap filled bucket, just sort of swirling the clothes around inside. This is how I’ve been doing laundry so far and explains the mild funk I’ve been smelling for a few weeks now. Some of the ladies came up to the well to get water to start cooking dinner and saw me attempting to finish my wash. They stood there watching me for a little bit and started to make me nervous, so I started stirring my clothes faster in the bucket, spilling suds all over. They exchanged a few words in Malagasy that I didn’t understand, but I’m sure was something to the effect of “crazy vaza boy.” The one woman relieved me from my work and patiently smiled at me while she showed me how to wash the clothes so dirt would actually come off. She finished my first load and was walking away laughing to herself, as I struggled with the rest and gratefully shouted “Misotra” after her.

Now I’m really enjoying my clean looking, and much more importantly, clean smelling clothes. I think I’ll let the women’s group handle my wash for the rest of the summer.