The Laundry

“Seize the moment” takes on special meaning when it comes to doing laundry. We live in a rainforest. That means on any given day there is a good chance of rain. It may be very brief and very light, but it is still rain. In a land where clothes dryers are an oddity you quickly learn to take advantage of the days – no, make that the hours – of warm, dry air. Washing machines are very different from what we were used to in Arizona. For starters, ours – a Samsung BIO brand – is made of plastic and weighs less than 25 pounds. When you are ready to wash you simply connect the hose on top, to the faucet of a sink, plug it in and turn on the water. Slide the “Selector de Aqua” to Lavado (Wash); load your dirty laundry into the drum (about 5 pairs of shorts will fill it); add some soap powder which is specially formulated for washing with cold water and set the timer (0 and 15 minutes). The small disc at the bottom of the wash compartment starts spinning at an incredible speed, reversing itself every few minutes until the clothes have had a thorough and impressive workout. Rinse and spin are next. For this step you move the clothes from the wash compartment into the smaller spin one. Slide the “Selector de Aqua” to “Centrifugado” for the spin cycle and set the corresponding timer. Again, surprisingly, the motor spins the clothes with incredible speed getting almost all of the water out. Now it’s time to hang them to finish drying. Like many of our neighbors our house is built on stilts allowing for area under the house to dry clothes. If you have started early enough in the day you should have dry clothes by mid afternoon. If they aren’t dry by 3:30 PM you many need to wait an additional day. If they haven’t dried by 3 days you may need to re-wash just to insure no mold or mildew. Laundry here tends to be more time consuming but if you plan ahead you can make good use of the “down time” by reading, studying Spanish or whatever pleases you. You can also feel good knowing you have fresh smelling clothes and have consumed very little energy in the process.