Laundry Day

Electricity is considered n unreliable resource in our area. Although there were only a few times when I experienced an extended electrical outage at my home, several of the PC Trainees in my class had no electricity (stima, sounds like steama) at their homes. Therefore clothes are washed by hand. Think three pots or pails, cold water, and some soap. Mama Mari was very specific as to how my clothes should be washed. Probably a good thing. One pail had a couple of inches of water mixed with soap. The other two pails were for rinsing. There was a specific order for washing the clothes. First the whites, then the colored clothes, and last came the socks. The underwear (called "pants") were washed inside the house and were to be hung to dry inside the home. Pants were not to be seen outside. The very dirty areas of clothing were scrubbed with bar soap and your hands. After living in Loitokitok for more than a week, everything had ground in dirt, so no one area was much dirtier than another. Washing involved a lot of hand scrubbing, or use of a soft brush. Amongst the PC Trainees you could tell who recently did their laundry by the bandages or eventually the callouses that developed on their hands and fingers. The first time I washed there were open sores on my fingers that took the entire week to heal.

Once an article of clothing was scrubbed in the soapy water, it was then wrung out and placed in the first rinse. After a few articles were gathered in the first rinse, say all the whites, they were wrung out and then placed in the second rinse before hanging up to dry on the line. Before hanging them on the line, all shirts and trousers had to be turned inside out.

The first time I washed my clothes, about ten days worth due to non-stop travel from U.S. to Kenya it took about three hours of a Saturday morning. Doing this a few times you quickly learn ways to minimize the amount of clothing to wash. Such as not wearing socks, and extending the life of trousers and shirts well beyond what would be considered normal daily wear in the U.S. Towards the end of my training, one weeks worth of clothing was no more than a pair of trousers and two shirts, plus alternating towels and bed sheets each week. This excludes my pants (remember the underwear) which were washed separately when I took my bucket bath.