Counting down the days until I get to use a laundry machine

My mom taught me how to use a laundry machine when I was 12 or 13 years, I think. Early enough for me to build a strong  relationship with them. I miss them. They are the most under appreciated invention, I think, on the planet. 

Of course I think that now, when I'm standing knee deep in rivers that I'm not supposed to be in because of some bacterial tiny creature thing that can get in through my skin and make me very ill ( so the doctors say...) washing my clothes, with my hands. 

But let's go back to home stay times when I washed clothes, by hand, for the first time in my life. 

Gathered my clothes, went to the river behind my house an stood there as my host mom and aunt showed me the routine and motion of washing clothes the Malagasy way (or the way of all people that don't own machines to help them). So they're 3 articles of clothes in within five minutes and I feel like I understand. I start. They stop me and show me all over again. Ya, ok, I got it! I start. They stop me. We try again until it's no use and I'm standing there watching again. Multiple this experience by three and that's home stay. 

What'd I learn? Keep your clothes clean, wear them as long as possible, and if I want to entertain or frustrate Malagasy women and children let them watch me wash my clothes.

Now, I'm gonna talk about the present. 

So, lucky me I live next to a huge river, I mean massive! It's name is Matitanana (which translates into "dead town", it's so big that it "kills" the towns closest to it each rainy season). So at first people told me to go under the bridge of another river, I listen because they tell me the water is clean and I feel like that's important for washing clothes. I head over around 10AM because then I don't have to walk with my basket full of clothes past hundreds of students heading in the same direction towards a school, and I figured many woman would be done washing their clothes because they insist on waking up at the break of dawn, or earlier. Well, that wasn't the case. I walked with my dirty clothes for about a mile to arrive at the bridge to find at least 7 women, 13 children and 3 babies all looking at me and cheering. I'll translate, they were cheering that the white girl does her own washing! More excitement was shown towards me washing my own clothes in the local river than the Malagasy showed at their own Independence Day party... Quite strange. But let's do this laundry washing in the river business. 

That time was better, I'm getting the hang of it, I think. 

So I repeat this until the water under the bridge becomes too dirty to wash there and me and everyone else need to relocate. So lucky for we go to the big river right in front of my house. It's quite fascinating how this one river is used. While I'm washing my clothes, there are people and goods being transported, women are bathing, omby (kind of like cows) drinking and pissing, children are playing, people are fishing and fetching water, all from the same source. So, on this note, the laundry topic has now turned into a major health issue for this community and all the other communities doing the exact same practices. 

This is dirty water, when people are washing themselves, brushing their teeth, and fetching water that they cook with next to animals walking in and pissing in the same source, we have a problem. And I for one, have no solution for people that have been doing it for years and years. My job is to educate people that they should drink clean water by filtering and bleaching it. Using these practices to clean water to not only drink but clean themselves and their clothes, to improve their hygiene habits and life style to create a healthier way of living. So I'm thinking all of this while women and children are washing their clothes and I standing right beside them doing the same. 

me,

Matitanana