Diana At the Crossroad: Oh, you know how to do laundry!

So, you wanna join the Peace Corps, eh? You wanna take bucket baths, poop in a hole, and wash your laundry by hand? Sounds like an adventure!

It’s amazing how quickly those adventurous sounding things become just your typical every day life. Normal. Ordinary chores. At least for me, it’s not good, it’s not bad… it just is. It’s whatcha gotta do.

For your general knowledge, this is the process of washing your clothes in Cambodia. Or as it is called here: Bowk cow ow (except no one says it in full- its more like bowka-ow).

Step one: Get at least 2 big buckets. Put powdered detergent in one of the buckets. Then put enough water in both buckets to cover your clothes.

Step two: Put your clothes in the bucket with soap.

Step three: Take your first article of clothing. Turn it inside out. With a scrub brush, scrub the collar and armpits. If you are washing pants or jeans, scrub down the length of the pants.

Step 4: Take a fistful of material in both hands, and scrub together, slowly moving your way from one end of the material to the other.

Step 5: Ring the article of clothing out as best as you can, and then place it in the bucket with water.

(*Note* Most people use fabric softener at this point. They soak their clothes in fabric softener, and then continue one with step 6. Personally, I do not. I don’t want to spend money of fabric softener, and I am too lazy to add another step)

Step 6: Repeat until all the articles of clothing are in the second bucket

Step 7: Try not to be too shocked at how dirty the water is after washing your clothes.

Step 8: In the clean water bucket, once again take an article of clothing, and scrub fistfuls of material together just like before.

Step 8: Once again, ring it out as best as you can. This time place it back into your hamper.

Step 9: Repeat with the rest of your laundry until all your clothes are in your hamper.

Step 10: Dump the dirty water in your family’s designated water-dumping-area.

Step 11: Hang your laundry out to dry. You may choose to hang it with hangers or without, it doesn’t matter. Also, you can hang them on a line in the sun, or a line under a roof. Clothes in the sun will dry faster, but you also run the risk of sudden downpours catching you off guard.

Step 12: 12-24 hours later (12 if it is in the sun all day, 24 if it is not) you can take down your clothes, fold them, and put them away.

Doing your laundry by hand really kind of destroys your hands. My fingers are always peeling for a day or 2 after I’m done laundry. I usually do laundry every 5 days. My sister has incredibly dry skin because of the amount of laundry and dishwashing she does. I feel bad because she’s really embarrassed by it. She says she has hands like an old woman, and she actually doesn’t like leaving the house because of it. After a couple of tries, she did finally get some medicine that would actually help her hands, and they are improving.

Doing my laundry in Takeo with my training family was very different from doing my laundry here in Prey Vang. In Takeo, there was always people watching me. My little sister would always come help me, which was sweet but often kind of unwanted. Then of course my little brother Leeny would get jealous that Titi was spending time with me, so he would try to help too. I would tell him no thank you. So he would fill up another bucket with water right next to me, take his clothes off, and then run and jump into his bucket, splashing water all over. Sometimes my older sister would watch me for a while silently. I would tell her “yes I KNOW I’m not all that good at this!” and we would laugh. But she wouldn’t stop watching. During all this, I would be trying to do my underwear whenever I could get a sure 20 seconds of no one looking. This was pretty difficult. Then my mother would come along, watch me for a split second, and then get frustrated with how long it was taking me. Or maybe how bad I was at it. Who knows. So she’d squat down next to me and start speeding through my clothes. I would try to grab my underwear and do my underwear myself. She would look at me funny and then snatch it back, basically saying “get over yourself, I do laundry for 7 people in this house, including my 5 children. Don’t you think I’ve seen dirty underwear before?” Then I would hang my clothes on the outdoor line either with my lil sister or my mother. Then I would be busy during the day going to my training classes. Sometime around 3 or 4 it would start pouring and my mother would run out to salvage my clothes. She’d pull them down from the line quickly, and then hang them back up on a line that was under a canopy. If they were already dry, she would fold them neater than I ever could (and probably faster. I never saw her do it) and place them on my trunk in my room. When I came home I would give her an insufficient thank you in a language I wish I knew better.

At my new house it couldn’t be more different. I didn’t know what to expect the first time. I told my sister I had to do laundry. She said ok. So I said… uh… where? And with what bucket? So she showed me the laundry spot, and showed me some buckets and started to walk away. I was like WAIT! Which buckets are for laundry and which are for dishes? She replied with “whatever” and left me to my washing. I had all the privacy in the world to scrub my underwear! After a week or two of me being there, I was washing my clothes and my sister passed me as I was scrubbing the collar of a collared shirt. She said “Oh! You know how to do laundry!” Interesting.. if you weren’t sure I knew how, why did you leave me to my own?? Haha. Anyways, so that first time she also gave me a bunch of hangers. We hang our clothes on our upstairs porch where rain can’t get to them (unless it’s a monsoon!). Sometimes I forget the next day that my clothes are there. So there my clothes will stay for 2 or 3 days til I realize I don’t have any clean pants left. This doesn’t make my new sister any less helpful. She just respects my stuff, which is nice. Besides, when I forget my clothes, they’re usually kept company by a bunch of clothes that my sister forgot were still hanging too haha. She’s actually worse than me!

Well, enough about laundry. Who woulda thought I could write a full 2 pages, single space in Word about laundry.

I started my first secondary project today! I’m teaching a beginning English class for adults. Right now, it’s just 5 people: my brother, sister, my other sister, my sister next door, and my brother next door. Sorry if that’s confusing- everybody is your brother and sister in Cambodia. More are supposed to come though I think. People have asked if they can pay me. Of course they can’t. But my brother told them that I will accept payment in cans of Coke. That’s the most brilliant thing I have heard in Cambodia yet. I’m gonna have so many cokes. I need them!

So today was our first lesson. My brother bought a decent sized white board for me to use, so we set it up on a table under the house. The whole thing was a ton of fun. My students were all my best friends and family here. They were so cute with their little notebooks and pens! We started out with writing the capital letters. I joked that this was a test and made them all write it down in their notebooks. By the end of the lesson, we had accomplished Hello, how are you, fine, good, thank you, and you?, what is your name? my name is…. Not too bad for only an hour!

Now I’m sitting here in my room, and I can occasionally hear my family practicing with each other in the other rooms. It’s adorable. I’m so proud! I’m gonna teach them twice a week for an hour for as long as they remain interested. I’m looking forward to Thursday’s lesson.

These are the last batch of pictures from training. Another way to say that is: these are the last batch of pictures with my old camera- before my mother dropped it in the fish soup at dinner.