Doing Laundry in the DR

Here's a little bit about doing laundry in the DR...


This is a typical Dominican style washer. There are four steps to washing clothes. First, I fill the left side with water from a hose (but not too high as there is no lid) along with detergent. Then I put my clothes in and turn on the spinner for about 15 minutes. Then put my clothes in wringer on the right side (which has a lid) for about 5 minutes. While the clothes are being wrung out I drain the now dirty water from the left side and refill with hose water. Next I put the clothes back in the left side for about 15 more minutes to rinse out the soap. And last I put the clothes back in the wringer for 5 more minutes. Hanging clothes to dry is a whole different art. It took me about 2 months until I could get everything hung up in less than 20 minutes AND without dropping any of the clean clothes in the grass/dirt.

This is where I hang my laundry when it looks like it's going to be a sunny day.

Doing laundry here is a strategic thing. Everyone hang dries their clothes outside because no one has dryers. So, if you get stuck doing laundry on a day when it starts to rain you end up having to be creative. We found some rope, not even long enough to hang across my whole room, then had to find random places to tie the ends to. Then I had to figure out how to keep my clothes from sliding to the middle. I ended up putting a pair of running shorts between each hanger and that seemed to work pretty well with the fan blowing on them.