Wash Day

As soon as breakfast is over, I get started on my laundry.

I sit on a low wooden stool in the courtyard, plastic wash basin balanced on the ledge next to the water faucet.

I dunk the clothes in and swish them around a bit.  One by one, I pull them out and scrub them vigorously with the bar of soap that smells faintly of lemongrass.

Frotte, frotte, frotte.

Sokhna, the girl who works for Angèle, sits across from me, cleaning the fish for lunch.  She scrapes scales with the dull knife, and I catch a whiff of the comfortingly familiar scent of ocean and salt.  It's fresh - the way fish should smell - not like the nearby market on a hot day.

Each soap-sudsy piece goes into a second basin.  When everything has been scrubbed, I tip the first basin and let the dusty gray water swirl down the drain.  I fill up the second basin to rinse the clothes.  I switch between basins for about three rinses - until the water runs clear - and then wring the clothes out.

I stand up and wipe the clothesline.  There's always dust.

Sweat clings to my skin as I hang the clothes up, from the heat of the sun and from the amount of water used in the process.

At last I'm done - the courtyard is lined with clean laundry.  It's a gratifying sight.

Angèle has finished giving the boys their baths.  She hands me the baby so she can shower, too.

I settle on the couch and, from down the hall, the fragrant smell of Sokhna's lunch reminds me that somehow I'm hungry again.  Maybe I worked up an appetite doing all that laundry.  Or just maybe garlic, onions, herbs, and chilies are irresistible no matter what one has spent the morning doing.