SK in Malawi

A Little Perspective March 20, 2011

When I was in high school, I hated doing my own laundry.

Then I went to university, where for the first three years, I had to go up or down at least one flight of stairs to get to a communal laundry room, and eventually, moved to a place where I had to walk my laundry down the street to use the laundromat. Often in the rain and snow.

Then I came to Malawi, where I don’t have a washer or dryer, and where putsi flies (also see this) are common: “If clothes are hung outside, it is possible for a female fly to lay eggs on them, especially when the clothes were contaminated with urine or faeces. The clothes are then worn and the eggs penetrate the skin. People will usually complain that their body is itching and within three days, painful, boil-like lesions occur. Over the next three days, pus emerges from each sore as it gets ripe. Once the sore is expressed a worm comes out of it.” Yum.

To kill the larvae, you have to iron all of your clothes after they are hung dry, or use a dryer. I do have an iron and ironing board at my place, but because of the plug for the iron, I can only use it in the space in my kitchen – an area of about 3×4 feet. So, I bought a clothing horse to hang dry my clothes inside. It worked well until I started hang drying all of my sheets, and then it broke. So I bought another one (which still works well).

This weekend, I’m housesitting, so I thought I would capitalize by asking my friends whose house I’m staying at if I could use their washer. “Sure!”, they said, “Except our dryer is broken and so is our spin cycle.” No problem. I figured I would hang my washing on their line and leisurely do all the ironing while watching House on Sunday afternoon.

It is now Sunday morning and it has rained on and off all weekend… meaning my washing has been hanging on the line, damp, attracting mama putsi flies to lay their eggs in it for the past 24 hours. The sun is nowhere to be seen. And I kid you not, as I write this, it has just started raining.

When I get home, I am never complaining about doing my laundry ever again.