Laundry List

Photo above: a laundry tub in Granada, Nicaragua, December 2004

One of the questions students always have when they arrive at a dorm is how to do the laundry, and a good thing, too. Every country has its own laundry mysteries. In Nicaragua the home four of us stayed in on an Interim trip in 2004 - a house so enormous that it was built around several courtyards that took up almost a block - so big that they rented out office space by opening exterior doors on the street - so big it held enough furniture for twenty families - a maid did the laundry by hand in a stone tub. She then strung it on crisscrossed lines in the courtyard while chickens clucked beneath. (And that's what we had for breakfast, cooked by another servant: the eggs from those chickens.)

Although one of the texts we are using for the Culture Class, "Encountering the Chinese," notes that Chinese students often live five or six to a room in a space the size of "a large pantry," and sleep stacked in bunks The authors also explain that Chinese college students often have to haul the water to do their laundry by hand, carry their own dishes to the dining hall, and wash them afterwards. In comparison to that we are not roughing it. (The students here do not have to wash their own dishes, although you often see students carrying large thermoses that they fill with boiling water and use for tea and ramen-style noodles. I assume they have washing machines in the Chinese students' dorms here, but I don't know that for a fact.) We have washing machines on our floors, which is extremely convenient. Here's how it works: buy a 50 RMB (50 yuan) magnet, shaped like a flat ice cream cone, at the front desk. Get yourself some detergent and some plastic hangers at a market or the convenience store. Put a small load of clothes in the tub (the top folds back to open), add about a cup of detergent, and hold the magnet on a green spot on the dashboard of the washing machine. After about five seconds, the machine will start, and it takes about 40 minutes for a load to finish. A dorm room for foreign students may come supplied with some kind of clothesline or rod; in some student people hang them out the window on racks. My room has a fancy arrangement with a rod that I can raise and lower to take advantage of the breeze from the window or move out of sight when I'm done hanging my laundry. In this lovely dry season it dries pretty quickly, usually overnight.