Laundry "Fun Times"

Laundry is something that always piles up in our family, and I never seem to make the pile smaller for long. Just when I think I have got it licked the kids come home from school or Dallas comes home from a flight.

Living in a third world country comes with it's own challenges for doing laundry.

I am very thankful that I have a machine that washes the clothing, towels and sheets for me, if the power is on.  But I do not have an electric machine to dry them.  I have three lines in my back yard, and four small lines under cover for when it rains.  I can still dry the laundry but not as much as on the bigger lines in the back.  After everything is dry it needs to be ironed to kill all the bug eggs that might have been laid on it.  And again this only happens if the power is on.  Sometimes I have been able to wash and dry the laundry but then the power says good-bye and the laundry just sits there clean but unable to be used.

Take the last few weeks for example.

Three weekends ago we were without power for the whole weekend. So no laundry was done but everyone had to wear clothes and the pile gets bigger and bigger.  The power came back on Sunday afternoon, and I was able to do one load because it was late in the day and had to be hung on the smaller lines.  On Monday I had great plans to get a lot of laundry done but with the piles so big and a small washer I knew it was not all going to get done.  Monday morning I got the kids off to school and proceeded to get laundry started, but the power went off again for the whole day.  So the piles of laundry got one day bigger.  The rest of the week the power plaid tag, and I only got about 5 loads done all week.

The next week was a lot better and I got the piles down and did some extra that was waiting for smaller "need to wash" piles.

 All was going great until last Sunday, when the power company thought we had had enough power and could be off for the day.  On this day our neighbors behind us also decided that the trees between us were getting too big and becoming a security problem so they needed to come down.  As they were cutting things down they did not realize that one tree was not going to fall where they thought it would.  It came over our wall and hit the power lines.  Now we were going to be without power for longer then just that day.  The power company was not going to turn the power back on until our neighbors were done with the cutting.  Everything was done and the power back on by 2pm Monday afternoon but because of the time of day only one load got done again.

The rest of this week has not been good for laundry. 

Tuesday the power plaid tag again, and I didn't get any done. 

Wednesday it rained all day, and I don't have a lot of space for drying in the rain so no laundry.

Thursday I got two loads done and then the power went off.  It came back on later but by then it was to late in the day to get things dry.

And that brings us to today, and my great plans to get a small load done because it was raining again. I was just about to get the load going when the power went off and has not come back all day.

All this to say when everything is right you do laundry. I even found myself doing two loads on Christmas day this year.  Something I thought I would never do.  But there was some laundry that needed doing so it got done.

The joys of keeping house in Uganda!