Most of the things I do as a fachenta volunteer are very similar to things back in the US, so I don't feel like I'm living that differently. I use a shower head to shower(except when there's no water, then I bucket shower), the toilet works, I have electricity regularly(except when se fue la luz). However, I do hand wash my clothes, which I definitely never did in the US. My mom thought I should explain how I do that since it's such a foreign concept for estadounidodenses (people from the US. Can't call them Americans because Nicaraguans are Americans too)
How to Wash Clothes Nica Style:
-Soak clothes by color with powder detergent in a bucket for several hours. Sometimes I do it up to a day.
-Empty the water and then take the article of clothing and lay it out on the washboard.
-Take the roll-bar of soap and rub it on one side of the clothes. Then rub it on the other.
-Put some water on the clothing, then start scrubbing. Keep scrubbing, add more water, scrubb some more until all the soap is out.
-Hang it up to dry. When you take it off the line, make sure to shake off the ants!
*I am still learning how to master washing by hand. My first host family had a washing machine, which is almost unheard of. Watching Nicas wash clothes is amazing. Hopefully I´ll work my way up to being half as good as these women.
Nicas wash clothes as if they were still beating them on the rocks at the river. You don't have to do it that way. I live here, too, and I handwash my clothes, just as I did in the States. I soak them in a big tub with detergent; wring most of the soapy water out; rub the dirtiest parts on the ridged concrete washboard, using the lye soap ball on stubborn spots; plunge and swish back in the original tub to get out the lye soap; wring and dunk in second tub, of clean water; swish and dunk to get soap out; wring and dunk in third tub of clean water to remove any remaining soap. Wring and hang to dry. (Never had ants, but it could happen, as they're everywhere else. Maybe they like the lye soap, which is very hard to get out and leaves the clothes feeling stiff.) This method uses less water than the 'run/pour water over the soapy clothes until it washes the soap out' method, and the clothes end up with less soap left in them.
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