Laundry day

Ruby came home from Canada last night, so we'll be doing a lot of laundry today.

We have a wash machine and a "spinner", which is separate from the washer so you don't have to wring out the clothing.

Most of the clothes are first washed by hand, to get out the stains, then washed/rinsed in the wash machine, then put into the spinner drier to get rid of excess water, then it is hung out to dry: Outside, but now that the monsoon season is here, inside our spare room.

traditionally you used a laundry bar for this
but now you usually use "sachets" of laundry detergents. And traditionally, the laundress sits on a low stool and washed things in a large plastic pan.


the rinsing and wringing out is the hard part, which is where we use the washer and spin drier, before hanging things up.

our yard is large, but neighbors hand clothing out front, on the street, where it gets sunlight.

Of course, when the humidity is 98percent, you need the sun to dry the clothing, and when it is raining, it never quite dries, so you end up ironing it, to get it completely dry and also to remove wrinkles.

However, there are modern wash machines like in the USA: We used to have one, but the staff would pack it with clothing and it wore out the gears. They are very expensive, so we never replaced one, and anyway, the staff would prewash the clothing by hand and just use it to rinse, whereas in the USA, we would only pre wash bad stains before sticking them in the washer.

And last week I actually spotted a "modern" Laundromat up in the new area of town.

so things are indeed getting modern here in our small town city.

This is how one did laundry in the "good old days" in the USA:


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