Loads of Fun

If you ask a typical American what they like to do for fun, you’re likely to get a variety of answers ranging from adrenaline rushing adventure sports to tranquil evenings with books and smoldering logs. What you’re not likely to hear is the word “laundry.”

Oddly enough, when I ask many girls in my community what they like to do for fun “washing clothes” is among the top three answers. It’s up there with washing dishes and sweeping.

At first I couldn’t believe that their replies were sincere. I loathe doing laundry. I despised the act even in America where I just had to sit in a laundromat for a couple of hours and wait for a buzzer to go off. Whalah- clean. Here washing clothes is done by hand. And I don’t mean in the sissyfied way that you see on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when the mom stirs the boiling caldron of cloth while singing “Cheer up, Charlie.” (A real low point in the film, in my opinion.) Here you put your back in to it. And your knuckles. You scrub each inch of each sheet against a old-fashioned wash board or against itself using your fingers as a source of friction. And it takes a long time. Laundry here means hours of labor rather than hours of sitting. How is it possible, then, that girls would tell me that they like doing this activity?

After a few months of adjusting to the pace of life in my community, I began to realize that here work and fun are not necessarily separate parts of people’s days. Since most people are self-employed as agriculturists, they work in one form or another all day long. Their work is theirs; they call the shots. And they feel a sort of satisfaction with a job well done. A feeling that you might even call “fun.”

Just as beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, fun may be as well. One woman explained that she especially likes washing soiled baby’s pants. She felt really proud at watching something so dirty turn into something very clean as the result of her own efforts.

Her comments reminded me of a discussion group that Scott and I participated in while in Wisconsin. For 6 weeks we focused on the topic of Voluntary Simplicity. During one session, we explored an essay about enjoying the details of each day, and one member of the group shared that she related to a point about washing dishes by hand. She liked washing dishes- feeling the warm water splash on her skin and then seeing the results of her labor. It was satisfying and relaxing, maybe even fun.

Perhaps I need to broaden my definition of fun. Perhaps it’s not only the intentional acts of play, but the moments of enjoyment during a job being well done. Will laundry ever fall into this category in my mind? Probably not. But I may be able focus on some of its finer points. The nice smells, the time spent on my roof in the sun, the pile of stinking clothes off my floor. Maybe.


PS: Speaking of fun, I'll have you know that my plaid party pants made their public debute last weekend. All day I had the feeling that people were greeting my legs and then my face. Who can blame them? They create an optical illusion that draws your eyes right in. It's difficult to look away.