The Art of Washing Clothes.

As I have said before, there are many things that we take for granted in America. Our simple way of living is considered luxury when you visit most countries around the world. Sunday. June 16^th 2013, I lived through yet another hardship experience from living in Mongolia. Well at least for me it was difficult and very time consuming. This task is known as washing clothes. And no I do not mean throwing my garments into the washing machine and allowing it to do its job. I’m talking about scrubbing and wringing, hands pruning, blistering, back in the olden days, hand washing.

Prior to this event I was aware that I would be having to hand wash my clothes for the next two years. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal because in the past I’ve washed simple garments such as my underwear that barely took anytime. I give a lot of props to Mongolians because although hand washing is not difficult it can get tiring, especially if you have a large load of clothes. Luckily for me I only had about a week or two worth of clothes, most of them being clothes I just kept recycling because I didn’t want to hand wash too much things.

I asked my host sister to help me with this task because I had no idea what I would be doing at first. She was very helpful, and she instructed me on what to do. The hand washing process consisted of placing my clothes in a tumpkin filled with powder detergent and water, and scrubbing it with a soap bar. I did that to all the garments I had. The level of scrubbing depended on how dirty or smelly my clothes were. That took maybe about an hour. Then I emptied the tumpkin with the soap filled water and got fresh clean water to rinse my clothes. Luckily for me my family has a machine that spin-dries the clothes so they are not soaking wet when you line them up to dry. The entire process probably took an hour and a half to two hours. This does not include the drying process either.

Although it was a strenuous task, hand washing my clothes was quite fun. While I was washing, my mind was able to roam about other things that were going on in my life.  I began planning out my week, practicing the Mongolian language in my head, and I had a few brief conversations with my host dad. I also had a friendly visit from one of the house cats that lives in our yard. The cat kept me company while I was washing my clothes. Furthermore, I am going to set a goal to wash my clothes once every week or once every two weeks. I figure that if I wash my clothes somewhat frequently, I won’t be spending hours upon hours washing. I look forward to washing my clothes again!