Laundry Day

The spacious laundry room


Lots of wet clothes!

We've been here 10 days now, plus we had some dirty laundry when we left LA, so I decided it was time to do some laundry. We heard quickly when we arrived here that students don't really do their own laundry, despite having free access to machines 24/7. Instead, the students hire someone to do their laundry for them, which costs about 150 rupees per month, I've been told. Now that's cheap! I thought to myself though that if I am not cooking or cleaning, and I hire the laundry out to a helper, then I have really no purpose here. So on Monday morning I set off to do laundry all by myself. I bought the detergent from the convenience store and sorted out 2 loads. I had already checked the machines and saw that they only hold 5 kg of clothes (about 11 pounds). Three pairs of jeans from me and Geo already weigh 11 pounds, so I knew this could take awhile. But I was prepared, because I have all the time in the world. However, when I got there, all the machines were in use. And they had buckets of laundry lined up already. I walked back to my room, head hung low, because now I had made the decision to hire someone to do our laundry too, if this was going to be the situation. I walked to the front desk and asked if I could have someone get my laundry. With a confused look and a head bobble, the lady replied, yes, tomorrow morning. I was happy, I guess. I almost thought to myself, good riddance. Well, Tuesday came and went. No one came to pick up my laundry. Wednesday morning and still no one is picking up my laundry. Now I have decided to do it myself again, so I went back to the laundry room and saw the same story I saw on Monday. No chance. But I made a plan to go before dinner started at 7:30 pm. Lucky me, it was empty! I had the room all to myself. I started two loads, but during dinner, I decided I'd get all of it done tonight. Only one problem. Drying racks. We'd already asked for one on Monday, but we didn't get one. (I think they also said, tomorrow then.) Geo went back today to get one and he got the same answer. Tomorrow. Hmmm. There are drying racks all over the place, but there are none for us. So we decided to borrow our neighbor's drying rack which has been sitting on our front common area since we've been here, unused. They have their laundry done for them, so they don't really need it often. Well, I ended up doing 5 loads of laundry, so I had to find more than one rack. Geo went up a level of our building and "borrowed" another one (really, he's not borrowing it, we stole it. No one is ever in their room...but we left a note!). Okay, so now I have two drying racks for 4 loads of laundry. They're both full. It's almost 11 pm. I have one load left in the washer. Now what? Fortunately, our next door neighbor came home and donated his to us. He also his laundry done and his drying rack still has the plastic on it. Woo-hoo! I've never been so excited. So it's 11 pm and I've got 5 loads of laundry drying on the front landing. It's bedtime though, so I've pulled the racks into the living room now. There isn't quite as much air flow, but it's warmer inside, so hopefully that will help.