This short piece was contained in a letter of lamentation (or mild annoyance, at any rate) to friends at home from our home in Chiclayo, Peru. Egad, back in 2006. We had a three-month job teaching English at ICPNA (Inter-Cultura-something) which was an English-language school for fairly well-off Peruvians in their second-largest city. We decided to give employment to a team of washer women, with sometimes unfortunate results. And, yes, if you have my book Footloose & Shouldless, you'll have read it already; but hey, I needed to lighten up a bit. Wait 'til you see what I do with Beverly and my hearing disability coming up.
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It is a Monday afternoon and I am sitting by the window of our apartment in Chiclayo, Peru, not planning lessons for my English classes, but rather, looking at laundry drying on the rooftop lines across the alley and feeling quite nostalgic about my underwear.
It seems like only a few short days ago that it too was waving at me across that (pardon me) brief, urban gulf, -- so near and yet so unattainable. Will I ever see it again? ever hold it in my hands? ever crush it to my loins? ever shut up about a pair of lousy underwear for gawdsake? So goes the great laundry lotto and B’s most un-spouse like response to my complaints.
We pass over our sheets and trousers and tops and the next day we see them strung out on the line, and a few days after that a smiling young woman delivers someone else's clothes to our door. I know the little wretch understands exactly what she's doing. Probably rushes straight back to report on our reaction and get a good thigh-slapping guffaw or two from the rest of the sadistic gang at the ole suds-n-tubs. I'm sure they stay up nights, planning the whole thing.
"Right, you take #10's stuff to apt. #6; apt. 4's sheets go to apt. 8; apt. 8 goes to 10, except for the underwear – we'll hang that out another day just to tantalize him a bit more." I am NOT paranoid!
In defense, we have taken to doing some of our own laundry. We already have a tub, which serves as a washbasin for the produce we bring home from the market. A few drops of bleach creates an antiseptic wash, and previously boiled water kept in a four-litre jug serves as a rinse. Also, we have that universal service area called a bathroom. This space measures about one step by three including the shower zone, an area marked off by a sill across the floor and a shower curtain that may or may not reach the floor. Everything can get very wet at shower time, so we figured why not wash the socks and underwear along with the bod. At least we’d keep them under our control.
As an aside, I must tell you that there are no bathtubs anywhere in the entire nation of Peru, at least none that we ever saw in the three months of our teaching and traveling. This is a country that likes to keep its citizens on their feet, alert to any sudden change in affairs, such as the warm water of the showers turning suddenly to ice water.
The notion of reclining in a sudsy, hot bath, perhaps with a glass of scotch, oh, and a good book or even a newspaper, and someone to scrub your back and massage your … well, you can see where all this is leading. It is not the sort of decadence that could ever be permitted in a land where the last Inca ruler was captured by invading Spaniards after having pampered himself in the hot springs of Cajamarca.
The major problem with pursuing any activity in this bathroom zone beyond the basic functions for which it was designed (and a little light reading) is this lack of space. I have been bent down “splooshing” (her word) underclothes in suds in the tub and been rudely catapulted into the shower stall on occasion by B’s barging through the doorway in her urgency to use the facility. It calls for quick reactions, I can tell you; that or a forgiving nature, with which I have not been blessed, as those wretched little washer-witches will discover if I lose any more garments to them.
Of course the washing of any fabric necessitates the drying of it, and therein lies a bit of a problem if you are not in the business of doing laundry and haven’t strung up great wire lines around your roof. We hadn’t. I may yet, but at the time of which I speak, we had not, and so I did the next best thing and tied a string across in front of an open window.
Said window had to be the one above the toilet because it was the only place where there were enough switch boxes, towel bars and light fixtures to anchor the string to. This meant that no matter how firmly wrung out, the laundry invariably dripped on one whilst one was seated on the toilet. It is a bit distracting that, especially when you’re reading, what with drops falling on your head or on the page. B still faithfully splooshes, rinses, wrings and hangs, but I’ve lost the inclination.
I’ve also lost three pairs of underwear, and nothing it seems, can bring them back.