Laundry Day!

So after being here for almost 5 weeks I finally learned how to do my own laundry! It was about as fun as it sounds. Doing laundry at home can be annoying and all you really have to do is add detergent, move clothes from one machine to another, and fold them at the end.  Here it is so much more.  I started laundry day on Sunday around 8:30 A.M. I learned that there is a process by which clothes are hand washed: whites, colors, blacks, and last socks.  In Paraguay it is rude to let other people touch your underwear or I guess really see it (this could be a lie they told us in training) so the trainees were all instructed to wash their underwear in the shower (about as fun as it sounds, also).  So after I learn about filling this bucket, that used to be a tire but now has a bottom, with water I add all sorts of soaps and throw in my white clothes.  My host-mom teaches me how to properly scrub the clothes and I think I catch on pretty quickly.  After I have all of the white clothes scrubbed and in a bucket waiting to be rinsed a minimum of 3 times I move on to the colored clothes.  I make the mistake of throwing a dress into the same bucket as my whites (I thought this wasn’t a big deal since we were using cold water, since that is all we have unless you boil it).  My mom runs over and re-scrubs all of my white shirts since they now have random red dye on them.  Luckily she was there to save the day and no harm came from my mistake.  Fast forward two hours and 14 buckets of water later and my clothes are clean and ready to be hung on the line! Aside form the color incident there was another highlight of my first true laundry experience.  This occurred when my mom grabbed a chicken from in front of me and flipped it over, holding it up by one leg.  As I looked at her curiously she smiles and says, “Voy a matarlo”.  Which translates as “I am going to kill it”, I then watched her break the chickens neck and hang it upside down by a string around its foot.  I also was luckily enough to eat the chicken for lunch with gnocchi (which was delicious).  After lunch I went to a benefit with some other trainees in a different part of town.  This was pretty fun mainly because it gave us all something to do other than think about how much language we still need to learn.  After I got back I went to the line and saw my clothes, although now extremely stiff, were dry.  This started the exciting second part of my laundry, ironing! Half an hour later my clothes were botfly egg free (hopefully) and ready to wear! Seriously 2 ½ of doing laundry has forever altered the way I will view those magical machines we take for granted in the states.  So the next time you put on a clean pair of underwear think of how nice it is that you didn’t wash them in the shower right after you washed your hair.  Or if you do decide to iron a shirt be thankful that you just want to look nice and you aren’t ironing out of fear of an insect laying eggs in your skin!

I also have the option of going back to paying my host-mom 1,000 guarani per article of clothing (that is 25 cents), which I just might end up doing.  Laundry was fun to learn but I may save that joy for when I am on site and have no other option.  Speaking of site in exactly 2 weeks I find out where I am going!!!! That is very, very exciting! Far more exciting than my birthday being on 11/11/11 this year, which let’s be real, is pretty exciting! Right now there are so many questions in my head.  Will I have running water? Will I be a follow up? Will I be a 10k walk to the nearest bus stop? Will I have to take taxis? Will I be close to other volunteers? If I am what if they hate me!?!?! 14 days and some of these questions will be answered! I also had my first real pang of homesickness the other night.  It was Halloween night and I had been talking to people about how my Dad dresses up as Indiana Jones far too often on Halloween.  Then that night I had a dream that had a lot of random things happen in the beginning (I won’t bore you with details) but ended with me shark fishing with my mom and dad (real parents, not host family).  I was using shark as bait to catch shark and laughing and talking to my dad when I got a bite while I was mid-question.  My dad yelled, “Shut up Maggie and SET THE HOOK”.  My dad then started laughing this super genuine laugh, and then I woke up.  So not only do I have to live with not knowing whether or not I set the hook (I think I did) but I also wake up at 2 A.M having just been dreaming about fishing with my parents and laughing with them.  It was such a mean dream! Luckily I am really good at sleeping so I put on some music and went back to bed; but before I fell asleep I definitely missed home.  So family and friends out there even though I may not have specifically dreamed about you I miss you all, despite the fact that I do still love it here. 

I finally figured out how to change the size of picture!

 Poor dead chicken/lunch.