Day 45 (aka, a lesson in appreciating your washing machine)

In this post, I want to make a special shout out to the basketball team. I just want to let you all know that I discovered two amazing new work out plans sure to get us ready and fit for next season. I call the first one finally-tell-the-clinic-that-your-washing-machine-filter-is-broken-and-have-them-send-it-to-Joburg-so-you’re-forced-to-handwash-your-clothes-all-night and the second (the one I believe most effective in improving your upper body strength) called pick-axe-a-road-through-the-Lesotho-mountains-side.

And, these activities I participated in are the exact reason why it took so long for me to make a post.

step 1: (what I did) soak clothes for a few hours in cold water with dish soap
(what you're supposed to do) use hot water and laundry soap

step 2: (what I did) start scrubbing at 6pm, still using freezing water, using the scrub-with-your-knuckles-and-wrist technique kadi showed me (her grandmother lives in mali and taught her when she went to visit her)
(what you're supposed to do) use newly heated water, start scrubbing in the morning

step 3: (what I did) wake up at 6am to finish scrubbing them, rinse and wring them, carry the laundry tub proudly on my head during the 20 meter walk back to the clinic and hang them to dry
(what you're supposed to do) finish them midday and hang them, so you don't have to leave them outside all night

step 4: assess the damage. I ended up with 5 friction induced sores on my knuckles. I showed people in the clinic and they just stared at me like I was crazy, as if they'd never seen anyone fail so miserably at washing clothes by hand.

step 5: apply neosporin and bandage them up (all the bandaids fell off the next day during my work with sos, see post above)

step 6: wear clean clothes!! (this morning I spilled some oatmeal on my newly cleaned pants and almost started crying.)