Doing laundry in Brazil has been an adventure. We packed our dirty clothes in a suitcase and took it to a laundry for the first few weeks. There are no self serve laundromats. So we handed over our laundry, got it back clean, dry, and folded, and handed over $R44. We then got a washer that the elders had as an extra. It didn't work, but we got a repairman to fix it, and gave him $R80. (Not bad, really.) We also got a dryer that was not being used. Yeah, I know why. Home dryers in Brazil run about 1 minute clock-wise, then stop for about 5 minutes. Then it tumbles the clothes counter-clock-wise about a minute, and then sits for 5 minutes. I asked someone why the dryers work that way, and they said, why, to let the water evaporate, of course! So, dryers take forever and put wrinkles in clothes. Some of my light blouses I dry for a minute, literally, then hang them up and most of the wrinkles fall out. But I am using an iron a lot more. And I am hanging clothes on the line, from outside my third story bedroom window.
And there are the memories. I remember helping my mother hang sheets and pillowcases, shirts and shorts, on the clothes line. My mother was tall, and pretty, and strong, and a hard worker. Picture Lucy Ricardo without red hair. She had a flowered apron with big pockets to hold the clothes pins. Two kinds of clothes pins--I liked the ones without springs the best. In my memory, it seems the wind is blowing, and I am handing her the pins, but she often had pins in her mouth, I think. The sheets smell so clean as we repeat the process in reverse, taking the pins out, folding the dry sheets right then. I remember the panicky feeling when a sudden storm blew up--get the clothes off the line before it rains!
I remember Mother teaching me to iron. I got to iron the dish cloths. Yes, can you believe it, we ironed dish cloths! I think I graduated to pillow cases pretty quick. She taught me how to iron a shirt--collar first, yoke next, cuffs, sleeves, fronts and back last. I ironed a few shirts, my own blouses and dresses as I got older. But I have always been a fan of permanent press.
As I have been pinning clothes to the line, taking off the clean smelling clothes, and ironing Bob's shirts, I have been touched by these memories of my mother. What a nice, sweet thing to do, neatly hang clothes on a line, and let the sun and wind dry them. The towels on the line got dry before Bob's shirts I was trying to dry in the dryer were half dry.
And I know my children don't have those memories. My washer and dryer have always been in a basement, and I have never had a clothes line. I always had, until recently, lots of laundry to do, and I probably wouldn't have lugged the wet clothes up the stairs if I did have a clothes line. I think I gave most of my children a short lesson on how to iron a shirt if they ever actually were in a situation when they had to use an iron. I don't know if that's a memory they have of me. Laundry has never been one of my strong points. But I have received real pleasure from hanging my clothes out to dry here in Brazil. I recommend it to you.
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4 comments:
Clothes dried outdoors certainly smell better than ones dried in a dryer! You probably don't remember pulling dried but frozen stiff diapers off the clothes line. Rick's diapers. Your diapers. I still have all my clothespins in a two-pocket apron that I made, just like Mother's. I have a clothesline ready to put up but it isn't up yet. Next spring's project, probably. Carry on!
Don't worry that you didn't teach us how to hang clothes out to dry. I have more than enough memories from my mission. Just think how nice a washing machine would be on a mission. I remember the good old P-Days sitting in the bathroom over a bucket of clothes. Then having to hang them up inside since we had no place outside to dry them. Without the wind, the wrinkles sure stayed in.
Wow, suddenly Guatemala doesn't seem so bad. $5 a month to pay a member to wash our clothes for us. I think Steph would go for that right about now.
I remember you teaching me how to do my own laundry in 3rd or 4th grade in the washing machine down stairs. I remember Cherie Hefner was jealous that I knew how to do laundry and she didn't. She asked her mom to teach her but her mom said she wasn't old enough yet. i also remember teaching Cirina how to do laundry our senior year of High School. You taught me how to iron once. Iron still isn't a strong point of mine either.
But I do have memories of washing my clothes by hand in Ghana and hanging them on the line. We would try to save them from a storm but we usually weren't sucessful and had to wash them again. We got better toward the end.
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