Washing Machines

I love my washing machine. I love the independence it gives me. I love popping in a load of laundry and knowing it will come out clean in less than 30 minutes. I love all the different detergents that exist to help remove the expected and unexpected stains that show up on my family's clothes. I love flipping the switch on the top to warm/warm or hot/cold or cold/cold and amazingly the water comes out the right temperature at the right time.

Now I realize how this all sounds, but after 10 years of living in Uganda, believe me, washing machines are a thing of beauty. Not that I washed my clothes by hand (well, except for the poopy cloth diapers), our workers did that for us. I was grateful for them. I was happy to pay their weekly salaries and be involved in their lives. It was a community expectation that we, missionaries, not hoard our money by refusing to hire local people to do time consuming jobs. One benefit to living in BGO was that it taught me that our labor saving devices replaced people. People who many times were desperate for work. So, my washing machine was a person. A person who had a name, and a family. A person who had dreams and desires of his own and needed assistance from time to time. Our place in society (educated, wealthy, with the luxury of choices on a wide range of things) meant that we owed something back to those in the community. While keeping my house reasonably clean would have left me exhausted everyday, it also would have given us a miserly, questionable reputation. So for 10 years I had 2 men working for me, in my house every day except Sunday. Two men, intimately acquainted with my family and how we lived. I got used to the lack of privacy and the sometimes raised eyebrows over how I wanted something done or the silent judgement over our clothes, or food, or parenting choices. Other than the occasional whoopsie doodle mistakes that are the normal result of language and cultural miscommunication (there were some Amelia Bedelia moments) we managed. I became used to my laundry (indeed much of my domestic life) being more communal, more dependent on others and less, much less private.

Over the last two years, I have realized (with quite a bit of guilt) how much I enjoy the privacy and speed of popping a load in a machine.... don't get me started on the dryer and how clothes can go in wet and come out toasty dry in 30 minutes instead of a whole day or two spent on the line hoping the whole time that it won't rain. Anyway, I realize that I can kid myself for awhile on how much I value "community" or stand back in arrogant judgment of the "rampant individualism" of American culture but one look at my washing machine brings me back to reality.

Lately however, I have loved my washing machine less and less. I noticed about a month ago, that our clothes were taking on the aroma of stale cigarettes. Now this was a bit confusing since no one in our family smokes. Some careful sniffing around and in the machine told me that the smell was coming from there. Hmmmm. Perhaps the people who used the machine before us were heavy smokers and I just didn't notice until now. It was a mystery. We use detergent with no fragrance. Could it be that I needed to switch to one with more perfume and risk rash breakout on my family's sensitive skin? What to do? Well, I've been back in the States long enough to know the answer to that question. I googled. "My washing machine smells like stale cigarettes" and amazingly several websites popped up. You have to love that. The cause of the stinky smell was actually oil/grime buildup from hundreds perhaps thousands of loads of laundry. Oil residue left over from body cells, dirt, stains and anything else that had not been broken down by a water soluble detergent was left clinging to the machine. Over time this builds up into smelly stinky grime that smells like cigarettes. So armed with a chopstick, I leaned my head into the drum and looked for anything suspiciously yicky looking. And right there on the top of the drum was a yellow layer of gook. I mistakenly thought this might be glue or wax that was put there by the manufacturer 10-15 years ago. Yep, not a chance. So I started scrapping with my chopstick and huge wads of gunk came out. Dog hair, people hair, lint, and just plain goo keep coming and coming. I felt like I was cleaning the ear of the Jolly Green Giant. Gross. Once the drum was again sparkly white, I ran the machine as hot as it would go with about four cups of vinegar. The result? A clean, non stinky machine that is once again in my good graces.