Whites & Brights

I know why women in India wear such bright colors....whites are too hard to clean here! Laundry has been a source of annoyance since we first arrived in India. The first few weeks we had no washer. We were assured that one was on the way (Indian Stretchable Time is a subject for another entry) but in the mean time we used a "Tide Bar". Who knew such a thing existed? It is what it sounds like, an over sized soap bar made of Tide. Fill up a bucket and scrub your clothes.....for nine people. We did finally get a washer, problem solved right? Obviously not or I wouldn't be writing. The first hitch was learning about the washer. A normal load takes about 2 hours and 45 minutes. Very inconvenient, but imagine how clean your clothes must get.....huh, not so much. Clothes that never ran, now ran and everything was looking dingy by the second wash.
About two months into our stay a wonderful man named Uday came to work for us. He has no front teeth and what seems to be a wrist and a thumb on his right arm, but he smiles constantly and knows everything you need to know to live in India. One of the first things he brought to our attention was that our water tanks needed cleaning. Water tanks? I learned we had three, one under ground and two on the roof. The water from the city only runs twice a day, so during that time you fill up your tanks. Good to know. Can you guess which bottle contains water from our tanks?




Eureka! The great dingy laundry mystery has been solved! So now our tanks are sparkling clean...ish, and our laundry is getting clean...ish. Hey, it's India, what do you expect? Besides white shirts are boring, I've always loved hot pink. And there is an upside. Tide for your washer that costs about $14 in the US runs about $1.50 here!