Delaney's Laundry Adventures

Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.
Miriam Beard

It's been getting harder to update, just because I feel like I've fallen into a routine now. After two weeks, as much as I hate to say it, the novelty is beginning to fade. Not that I don't completely love every second of being here, because I do, but it's starting to feel like, at least for the time being, I live here. Which I guess I do. I mean, it's not really vacation. When you set an alarm, get up for work, sit at a desk for 8 hours, then come home and make dinner, it certainly can't qualify as vacation any longer. And so it seems funny to blog about my day to day events, because they just seem sort of normal now. Lucky for you, I'll just have to dig deeper and find more random things to entertain you with!

For instance: laundry. I guarantee, you take your washer and drier for granted!!! Now, its not like I spend alot of time on laundry, even at home. I'll admit, back home, I turn the washer on cold/cold, throw in everything dirty that I own, and then chuck aboslutely everything in the drier, and from the drier to a laundry basket, where, more often than not, it sits until I decide to wear it next. I realize this is shameful, but hey, I'm just trying to be honest here! However, laundry here is an entirely different story. The hotel will do your laundry for you, but will charge you ridiculous prices, like $2 per shirt, which, as a poor little intern, I can't justify paying. Not when I am the new handwashing queen of the world.

Now, handwashing clothes is quite the ordeal. It begins by taking a garbage can, washing it out, and then filling it with a handful of detergent and room temperature water (hot water sets stains, cold water gives you frostbite). Then you put the makeshift washing machine in the shower stall and sit on the toilet. Then you shwoosh the water around to mix in the soap, throw your clothes in, and start scrubbin'. And scrubbin'. And scrubbin'. When your hands are bright red and literally itching to death from the friction and detergent, its rinsing time. At this point, I chose to change venues. I hauled all the soapy clothes to the sink, and ran water through them until there were no more bubbles. At this point, when my hands were so sore and cramped I couldn't stand it, I had to squeeze every drop of water out of every piece of clothing, and then hang them all along the window sill in the living room, so that now, as I write this, I am FREEZING because the windows are all WIDE OPEN. The best part is, the clothes will take at least 48 hours to be completely bone dry, so you have to be clever and decide if if you can live without an article of clothing for 2 days, or if it's gonne be worth it to "re-wear it".

I realize that this makes it sound like I washed every article of clothing I own, but it isn't even so. It took me over 45 minutes to wash one pair of pants, one shirt, and 10 pairs of underwear. It is such a time consuming, hand-ache-inducing process that I couldn't bear the thought of any more. I've decided after this experience that perhaps $2 a shirt might just be worth it... Luckily, while this was a physically grueling experience, it was acutally quite fun inside my head. I plugged my headphones into my ears and just started humming up a storm. Only my humming turned into singing, and that turned into me belting out the tunes so loud that Natalie and Heather literally snuck into the bathroom to make a video of me. I'd like to think it'll never be seen by anyone, but I doubt I'll be that lucky. Oh well, what can I say, it was making the whole process alot more entertaining!

Anyway, thats the latest. I told you, random, but still a good insight into life in Kenya! I apologise if "Delaney's Laundry Adventures" aren't up to the usual standards, hopefully I'll have something more riveting for you next time! :) You can definately look forward to updates about:

1) Why Elly's new nickname is "the arsonist" (pretty much the funniest story ever)
2) The super awesome project I'm working on at work
3) Our safari, which is less than 2 weeks away!!!


-Delaney xo