Laundry

Doing laundry here is such a nightmare that it deserves its own post. I have an all-in-one washing machine/dryer on my balcony. It looks like this:

Don't let the sticker of the happy, fun kids fool you. There is nothing joyful or fun about doing laundry in this machine. First of all, you can only fit about 6 items of clothes in it, or 1 bed sheet and 1 bath towel and 1 hand towel, or 2 bath towels and 2 of Sydney's shirts.... you get the idea. The only laundry detergent that I found at the store that I recognized was All and it doesn't remove stains at All. I had to throw away 4 of Sydney's shirts last week, and now she sleeps in her stained one. Otherwise, she will run out of clothes in a couple of months.

It takes an hour for the washer to run. Then I pour myself a glass of wine and take a deep breath before tackling the dryer. It is about as effective as if I used a blow dryer to dry the clothes myself. It runs for an hour at a time and after THREE hours, the clothes/sheets/towels are still damp. What a waste of time and energy. Most people here hang their clothes on the balcony to dry. With the pollution in the air and ubiquitous smell of cigarette smoke, why bother washing them to begin with? So now I hang clothes all over the house to dry.

Oh, but it doesn't end there. All of the laundry comes out in a wringled mess and everything has to be ironed. Even Sydney's clothes because they look like this:

My ayi does do ironing for me but if I left it all for her to do, she'll have to spend the entire day ironing instead of taking care of Sydney.