Each day brings something new here in Costa Rica. Today, within a span of about 5 minutes, I was quickly tossed between the 3rd and 1st world and back again. I woke up early to go over to my neighbors hours for the 4 day in a row to do laundry. Yes, it’s taken me 4 days to do 4 loads of laundry. What used to be my favorite household chore is now my least favorite.
Regular washers and dryers are hard to come by here. And Tico washers, well that’s a whole post in itself. I had been bringing my clothes to a nearby hotel to be done, but at $16 - $20 a load it broke the bank pretty quickly. Then I was fortunate enough to meet Jim, my neighbor, who has a US style washer and dryer that was open for usage. That lasted for a couple of months until it sent his electric bill up to $900!
I can’t go back to the hotel so my other neighbor Kat is letting me use her Tico washer and drying space. Score! I’m psyched to not have to carry it home wet from Jim’s to dry all over my shoebox studio that doesn’t really have any windows – probably at least a week process.
Kat’s got covered space to wash and hang. Score two! With rainy season here you can’t wash and hang outside then go to the store, or even the bathroom for that matter. The rains can come at any moment. However, although covered and opened to outside air it has STILL taken nearly 4 days to get everything done. Today I’ve brought the last load home, damp, and it’s laid out across the bed under the ceiling fan and the floor fan pointed t it. Mind you though, it already wreaks of mildew and seems dirty all over again, all over my clean bed:(
Anyhow, back to this post about 3rd, 1st and 3rd. I get up and walk over to Kat’s feeling like a 3rd worlder for having no laundry facilities. What was once so simple, now so laborious. I really do live in the 3rd world I think. On my short walk I am then blasted with Justin Beiber coming from the neighbor’s house! Blasted! Baby, baby, baby…This is from the neighbor’s house that drys their laundry on their roof and bathes outside in the dirt. They’ve got a rockin’ sound system though! First world and third combined. I got my sing-on for a moment and felt a little spring in my step.
I arrive to take care of my LAST load. Still soaked on the line I’m taking it down to bring home for the bed-drying. A little bummed that I’m not at the beach at the moment. Then a little excited each time a get a tank that’s dry enough to fold and put away. And then something wet is under my foot – under my foot, on top of my flip flop – in between. As I stretched to grab the clothes it was just enough for a GIANT cucaracha to park himself under my foot. The wet was his guts spewing out from the sides of my foot in my chancleta. Right back to the Terd world.
No comments:
Post a Comment