Laundry

Pictured: Asu, Mili Das on her mother's lap, the water pump.

I have come to relish washing my clothes. I admit I’ve always found laundry a satisfying experience, despite my tendency to put it off until there sits a mountain of clothes dominating my apartment landscape. I like the process in all it’s American varieties: a) the lugging of a giant bag to the local Laundromat, the watching of uncommonly-seen-at-home television shows like Sabado Gigante (nothing beats adding fabric softener to the antics and voice of Don Francisco in the background) while the clothes are washing and drying, the analysis of fellow washer’s clothing, b) the lugging of a giant bag to your building’s basement wash room after memorizing the schedule of all the other tenant’s washing habits in order to avoid wrangling over your favorite machine, and c) the luxury of having a washer and dryer in the home and lugging a giant bag to your own basement to joyfully pop in a load at your convenience while going about the day’s other activities, retrieving said load once finished, all warm and fluffy and ready to be folded while you relax in front of the TV, watching a show of your choosing, at peace knowing you’ve accomplished a task you often put off and that you’ll have clean clothing for another week (or two, or three if you really stretch it and buy some new underwear).

Here in Juanga, laundry involves a bucket, soap, water, a hard surface, my hands, a clothesline, and the sun. It’s windy, hot, and agricultural, so my clothes get dirty easily and regularly. I do a “load” every three or four days, a discipline I imagined I would dread, but as I said, I’ve come to relish. Not because I get some kind of kick out of “doing as the locals do,” or because I feel like I really “know how to handle life without amenities.” I like washing my clothes because I really like beating the heck out of them. I soak them in the soapy water for an hour or two, and then I take each garment and beat it against the cement by the water pump, pummeling out every piece of dirt that invaded it since it’s last washing.

I didn’t always know the joys of beating clothes against the proverbial rocks. I used to just swish them around vigorously in the bucket, do several rinses, hang them, and be done. But one of our hospital’s most dedicated workers, a teddy bear of a man named Asu, saw me washing one day and guffawed. Before I knew it, he had taken every piece of my clothing, underwear included, and in a flurry of grunts, methodically beaten each within an inch of its life. Rinsing followed, then a primal wringing-out process, again accompanied with several grunts and a semi-heave, and I was sent to hang the clothes on our roof. A small crowd gathered of our fellow hospital employees, all of them enjoying the scene and noting my utter embarrassment that Asu had beaten and wrung my clothes, most pointedly my underwear. I couldn’t get over the underwear. But Asu's example proved effective, awakening within me my own primal washing power.

While I’m beating my clothes, I feel connected to all those who pound clothes on rocks all over the world and who have done so through all time. All my frustrations come to the surface, finally having an outlet. I can beat my jeans and remember how angry I am that the Orissa state government hasn’t yet built a proper road to reach our village. I beat my soiled t-shirts and remember the fight in the village over six inches of property that lead to the injuring of a woman, and how much she bled as we dressed her wounds at the hospital. I pound away and think of Mili Das, a beautiful three year old girl whose foot was run over by a drunk driver tearing through her village on a scooter a month ago, who comes each day for dressing and cleaning of her excruciating wounds, whose life is now considered ruined because with a mutilated foot, she won’t be seen as a suitable candidate for a good man in potential marriage arrangements. I remember how my two favorite drummers from a neighboring village welcomed me into their homes and introduced me to their children, where I learned that one of their sons is blind, and another has six fingers on each hand, and that such maladies are considered part of the norm. I remember the political system run by bribes. I remember the difficulty in communication, the lack of trust I feel because I’m constantly fighting to get an honest answer about how things work, what time it is, when something can be finished, whether something has been begun, if I’m being asked a fair price. I remember how exhausting it is to be constantly stared at, haggled, touched because of white skin, asked for money, for a camera, for jewelry. Every challenge, spat, hurt feeling, cultural clash,injustice, and misunderstanding comes up and faces near pulverization.

By beating my clothes, I experience a window of time in which to entertain my negative thoughts, to admit anger, to let out the exhaust and fumes consumed and produced in a given several days of life and interaction and work.

I spend so much time trying to live on the positive side of the balance, partially because I’m an optimist, mostly because I am surrounded with an abundance of joyful experience and interaction. But the other side has its place, and thanks to Asu, I’ve found it.