Laundry

In Cameroon we have to wash our clothes by hand in a bucket and then hang them outside to dry. Or sometimes in most of our cases, hang them in our rooms until they smell like mold. Then we have to let them sit for 3 days after they’re dry before we wear them so we don’t get infested by Mango flies. Laundry takes a long time. Also, it is so physically difficult that I have reassessed the way I wear clothes. Something that would have been dirty before is no longer dirty and I won’t wear jeans just because I can’t imagine how hard it must be to wash them. Sunday was my first attempt, but I had to go to church and didn’t get back until later so my host mom finished my laundry for me so it wasn’t so bad. I had some other items to wash, so I did them Tuesday night. My fingers kind of hurt that night afterwards, but Wednesday morning I woke up to realize that I had scraped up my fingers pretty bad. Apparently I’m the only one in the health training group that really scrubs hard because this has not happened to anyone else, but I was assured by the Homestay Coordinator that it was normal because we are not used to doing it. Hopefully I’ll be set for a while and won’t have to clean anything any time soon.