Laundry

I haven’t done laundry since I’ve been in Africa. There are no laundry mats and the hotel cleaning costs are exorbitant. I’m pretty lucky that I actually have so much underwear that I’ve had enough this whole time. I attribute this to the fact that I still have underwear that I wore when I was 9 years old. I never throw away a pair unless they’re totally shredded. Slightly shredded is perfectly fine in my book.

I have one polo shirt here with me that I wear whenever I’m going out (not to work). Being my go-to shirt, it’s gotten a little dirty. There’s especially one huge spot of dirt right in the front*. Being my ingenious self I decided that I’d just grab a bar of soap and clean the spot off. The hotels have really powerful dryers so after about 5 minutes the spot was gone, voila! I felt really clever and like I’d bought myself a few more weeks with this shirt. Unfortunately, as I was heading out to meet my colleague I glanced at the mirror in the hotel lobby and discovered that all I’d done was create a really clean spot in the middle of an otherwise generally filthy shirt. It really only highlighted how dirty the entire thing was. But I had to make do.

I eventually succumbed to the hotel cleaning charges and got a couple of shirts washed (not even dry cleaned) for a whopping $60USD. Luckily, I’d found a clause in the Foundation’s expense memo that says if you’ve been living in a hotel for more than 7 days they cover laundry expenses. I wish I’d know earlier because I would’ve been doing my laundry every 7 days instead of waiting 6 weeks to do it on my last hotel stay. Oh well.

*The main issue I’ve found with dirty shirts is that all the seat belts leave a streak across the front. No one wears seat belts here so they are covered in red/brown dirt from just sitting in the holster. If you want to be safe, you have to risk the dirty spot. I guess you can’t be a successful business professional here without being willing to fly through the windshield during a head on collision. It’s truly a dilemma. I’ve been thinking of ways to get around this, and am considering getting a handkerchief for the express purpose of putting it on my shirt before strapping on the seat belt. I’ll definitely get a few stares, but better safe than sorry, right.