On Thursdays, We Do Laundry

I've been asked what's it's like to do my laundry here... The short answer? It's hard work and I'm very slow at it.

The longer answer needs to be illustrated with pictures. 

This^ is our "laundry room" (and kitchen, and slaughterhouse, and occasional shower...) As you can see, we are very lucky to have our own well! That means I don't have to walk 20 minutes to the community pump to get water, hallelujah.

Then you gather supplies... These^ are typical laundry soap here. I bought both of these at my favorite hotely for 1000 Ariary. In addition to this soap, I also need a packet of powdered hand washing detergent that I typically buy at Score (the Western grocery store). 

Oh, and a scrub brush is essential. 

Dirty clothes go in the bucket^ with the powdered detergent (and much less water than ones first instinct would tell them). The less water there is, the easier it is to scrub the clothes. 

And then, you get to scrubbing.^ Big items and things that need more scrubbing than others (jeans, underwear, button down shirts, sweaters) are placed onto the cement block and scrubbed. Otherwise, the other items are piled on top of each other to make a "surface". 

Basically, you grab your soap and scrub it across the shirt (for example), turn it over and get the other side; then, put the soap to the side and grab your shirt in both hands and rub violently together- as if you were rubbing your knuckles together. Continue scrubbing, using a brush on any particularly dirty parts, until entire shirt is covered in suds. "Rinse", wring, and put in new (clean!!) bucket. Repeat. 

Finished! ^ well, finished scrubbing.... 

Yuckkkkkkkk! All that^ dirt was in my clothing!! 

And now for the rinse cycle... Get to drawing^ that water! I typically go through 2 cycles (about 8 or 10 buckets full). My host mother would want me to do 3, at least (until the water is clear! Madio, madio, Ana!!) but since I am extraordinarily kamo (lazy) when it comes to laundry, my number of rinse cycles depends greatly on my mood that day.

After wringing the clothes as hard as you can, I take them to the back of the house^ and hang them up on "my" section of our clothes line. 

Phew! Finally done!! (about 2 or 3 hours later) 

I almost always end up grating my fingers^... But my nails have never looked cleaner than right after doing my laundry!

How I Twisted Purpose Into Arrogance

When I was in my sophomore year of college, my depression was continually getting worse and worse- medication wasn't helping (talk to me later about the trial and error process of finding the right medication...) and counseling didn't seem to be doing much good. One Wednesday night after the Celebrate! service at the chapel was over, I sat in the second pew from the front on the right hand side, curled up with my knees to my chest and stared at the Christus Rex figure. I wanted to be mad at God, but all I could do was stare blankly. 

I don't know how long I sat there. The chapel was dark; silence reigned; no one else was in the building. And then a noise broke the silence- the pastor, coming up from his basement office under the chancel. I willed him to move on. He didn't. 

He came and sat next to me, just sat and stared at the Christ figure with me for a while. Eventually he asked what was on my mind, and all my depressed existential musings spilled out. I asked him what the point of life was; why should I continue fighting so hard, when my quality of life was still so low? I don't remember his answer. 

But that was a question I continued asking, for a long time: What's the point? Why should I keep going? Is there even a purpose to all this...life stuff? 

I never got a satisfying answer. 

And it wasn't until a few days ago that I finally figured out why there had never been an answer that satisfied me... I've always thought that I needed to do something to justify my existence, that I needed to do some awesome thing in my life in order to give it all meaning: Cure cancer, catch murderers, become president, save children from a burning building. Think how selfish and conceited that is- it's all about my life, how great it needs to be, how I have so much potential and skills and talents that the world could benefit from. 

The problem was that I'd been viewing my life as a given, as something I was entitled to; therefore I felt the need to do something great with it to make it mean something.

Instead I need to view my life as a privilege, to recognize all the advantages and luxuries I've been afforded in my life, the things I've been given by luck of the draw (being born in America, being born white, being born middle class) and then use those things to live for other people. To help them in ways that they can't. 

It's not what I will accomplish that will give my life purpose, but rather that my life's purpose should be others. 

How have I missed that for so long? 

Ok, what do I do now with this new revelation? It's one thing to recognize that I need to live for other people, and it's another to actually do it. How does one go about doing such a thing? I'm not really sure, but I'm going to start trying. 

Maybe in another 20 years I'll figure it out.