Laundry Day...

I have been doing my own laundry since I was relatively young. It is not a particularily challenging thing to do in the States. I loved the luxury of throwing my clothes in the machine and turning it on, then repeating the process to dry it. It is not quite the same story in Azerbaijan.

Laundry is all done by hand here. Even if a family has a washing machine, it is typically ancient and they never use it. When I had been here about a week, I asked my host mom to show me how to wash my clothes. I can only imagine what went through her head – how can this full grown woman not know how to do laundry? I tried to explain that we do it all with a machine back home – my guess is that conversation only added more layers to her image of my bourgeois American lifestyle.

Her version of teaching me was letting me watch while she did it. Laundry is done in the bathroom (hamam). You get boiling hot water, pour it is a large bowl, add very strong detergent, and toss in a few articles of clothing. Side note – one of the very popular brands of laundry detergent is called Barf. For real. I took a picture. Anyway - laundry. You start with your whites and work your way up to the darkest colors. The detergent is very strong, so if you don’t, all of you light colors will turn grey or blue. And then you scrub. The Azeri women have this process of scrubbing their knuckles against each other, with the fabric in between. It is really rough on your hands. There is a separate bucket filled with cold water that you throw the clothes in to rinse. You rinse then out, and when you are done, you head off to dry them.

Every apartment has a line stretching from their window. The clothes get clipped on and hang to dry. My first laundry experience, I was a bit wary of having my delicates put out on display for the world to see. So, I gathered them and hung them in my room. The rest of my clothes were carefully hung on the line stretching from the kitchen window. Then I went for a walk with my host sister. Apparently, my choice of keeping my privates private didn’t quite fly with my host mom, because when I got back, she had retrieved them from my room and hung them out with the rest of the clothes. Ahhh, well.

I was allowed to do it for myself this past laundry day. Who would have guessed that that would be exciting for me? But, let me tell you, it is hard work. My host mom and Nana helped me hang it on the line. Definition of helped – let me watch them hang it on the line. By the end of the summer, my goal is to be allowed to be able to do the whole process by myself. It’s the little things, really.

I learned my lesson and am well past the underpants embarrassment. I even joined in while Nana cackled with glee at all of my bright pink, striped, orange, polka dotted, and generally decorative underwear dancing in the wind.