Laundry Day!

We've only been in Yaoundé for a few days, but it's already clear that the majority of us are not used to this kind of heat and humidity, so Lauren, one of our Volunteer Trainers, showed us how to do laundry.

I was used to a two-step process in the States. Step 1: Wash. Step 2: Dry. Sometimes, it was a one-step process: Ask Mom. (Sorry, Mom.)

Laundry in Cameroon has a multitude of steps, and can be considered a workout, if you're out of shape like me. First, you fill two buckets with water (one for washing, one for rinsing). Add some soap to the washing bucket and slosh it around until you have some suds. Next, soak the clothes in the washing bucket. (Generally, people throw all the clothes in at once, but I went article by article in a hopeless attempt to keep my whites pristine in a country full of red dust.)

Then, you scrub. You scrub like your life depends on it. You scrub until your fingers burn from the friction. And then, when you look upon that particularly stubborn armpit stain and despair, you scrub some more. Here we are in the midst of our toil:

I'd like to take a moment to describe Cameroonian cleanliness. Having graduated from college two years ago, I quite clearly remember students arriving to class in sweatpants or pyjamas, and while some of us scoffed or rolled our eyes, it was actually quite common. This would never happen in Cameroon. Men and women board 7-hour flights in high heels or three-piece suits. Children walk down the street in ironed button-down shirts. Here and there you catch a waft of body odor (because--come on--it's 90 degrees) but damnit, they look good. This seems to be contrary to American cleanliness, where no one minds if I wear pyjama pants to the grocery store, as long as I smell like flowers or baby powder. Yet another thing to take into consideration as we begin the process of integration.

The fruits of our labor: