Oh, how I miss washing machines!

I hate hate hate doing my laundry here in Rwanda. I don' t have an internal water faucet in my apartment, so what happens is I go outside and fill up a wash bin with water, add in a couple spoons of detergent, swish it around, dunk my clothes in, and let them soak there overnight. That's not so bad. It's the next day that's horrible, when I actually have to wash my clothes.

In order to get them semi-clean, I have to scrub like there's no tomorrow. It's scrub, scrub, scrub, then rinse, then wring... and repeat. And even after I repeat like 10 times, the water's still a dirty brown opaque color, my back is killing me, and the clothes that I'm currently wearing are splashed with mud that kicks up when I throw the soapy water out... which means I have to wash them AFTER I finish washing my other clothes. And when I finally see that the water is a semi-clear color after a bazillian rinses, I have to wring out every single piece of clothing, then throw them on the line. Have any of you ever tried to wring out a sweatshirt? It becomes 20 lbs after soaked in water. How about jeans? It's basically impossible. My hands don't even fit around the material well enough to wring them out properly. By the time all the clothes are on the line, my palms are dry and rough, my hands and wrists are aching, my back is aching, and I'm muddy and wet all over. And not only that, 5 minutes after I put on clean clothes, they're brown again from the dirt that lingers in the air.

Ah, I give up! You win, Rwanda! You win!