Laurel Scarlata: It’s good enough.

My dear friend Laurel imparts wisdom to me every time we are together.  Some years back, she had the revelation that sometimes good enough is indeed enough.  Is it necessary to drive ourselves crazy with inconsequential details?  Laurel decided no.  It has stuck with me, and today was a lesson in good enough.

 

The laundry situation here is ostensibly fine.  Each room in the residence has a laundry day – leave your laundry out on your day, it will be washed and returned to you.  However this apparently does not always go quite so smoothly.  Because it’s all hand washed and hung to dry, it can easily get caught in the rain (it’s rainy season – it rains every day), requiring another round of drying, and this can go through multiple iterations.  After a few rounds of this, it starts to smell musty.  Sometimes laundry comes back weeks later, some items not at all.   There are water spigots around the property, so people take matters into their own hands.  I decided today would be my day. 

As an aside, the housekeeper in the Buja house is a laundry superhero – my white shirt came back whiter than it was when new, and my jeans perfectly pressed.  I decide to save my big-ticket items for him.  Lucky him.

But in the meantime … underwear, camis, socks, shorts, a sweatshirt, my towel, and a pareo/wrappy thing I’ve been using as a robe/beach coverup/scarf/shawl/skirt (quite handy in fact); it was high time it was washed.

My roommate has a laundry basin – this is a good start.  But it’s really cold today and I’ve just had an icy shower, so there is no way my raynauds-stricken hands will endure being plunged into cold water.  So I do what any good mzungo would do – I ask the kitchen to boil me some water.  One hour they tell me.  Awesome. 

the boiling of the water

An hour later, my boiling hot water bucket in one hand, my clothes basin on my hip, I set out for the nearest spigot.  I didn’t bring any laundry detergent, so I use the Burundian laundry power – it comes in packets.  I assume a packet per load.  Thinking I’m being conservative, I use half.  

Immediately as the water hits my clothes, I notice a purple hue has begun to color my white towel.  It’s then that I realize this hand-dyed wrap thing has never been washed before.  Holy hell.  I put it on top of the spigot, and it continues to drip purple down the side of the pipe.  I ignore this.

I go to work getting the spots and mud out of my clothes and socks, adding a little extra powder for the tough stains.  With the basin on the ground, it’s backbreaking work.  The water is gray.  I pour it out and add more cold and hot water, mix it around again.  The water is still gray.  And also really soapy.  In between, I notice there are still mud stains on my socks, so I scrub a little more, dump, and re-fill.  Third time, same thing.  How dirty was my stuff??   I continue this routine until the hot water is gone, and still it continues; the suds persist.  I am remedial.  Why is this so hard?  As the basin is filling for the 8^th or 9^th time (I’ve lost count), I stretch my back and look out at the beautiful African lake, shining under the late afternoon sunlight.  It mocks me.  Mzungo.

I am sure everyone on site is watching me out a window, shaking his head at the inept mzungo, wondering about our water supply (I comfort myself by reminding myself it’s rainy season).   My back and my pride can’t do this one more time – I reluctantly yield, and decide it’s going to have to be good enough.  As I start to ring out each item and put it into the now-empty hot water bucket, I feel the soap residue.  Still!  These clothes are far from being rinsed clear.  I am now rinsing each individual item under the cold water spigot.  And ringing it.  And repeating.  I look around for Ashton Kutcher.  But alas I’m not being punk’d; I’ve done this to myself.  My shorts still feel slippery, but I’m done.  It’s just good enough.  My hoodie sweatshirt is so heavy, it will be dry exactly never.  I will look forward to wearing it then.

The washing of the wrap goes much the same way – load after load, the water goes from purple to blue to turquoise, but never fully rinses clear.  When I can take this no more, I decide it’s good enough.

Much of my life here has had to be “good enough.”  My dress is wrinkled, that scarf is pretty dirty, I can’t find a knife, my shoes don’t go with my outfit,  I haven’t shaved my legs, my toes look gross, my hair is a frizzball …. it just has to be good enough.  And to my western amazement, it is.

Today, as I’m washing, I’m thinking about the lives of the women I see walking along the paths and roads here.  Steep uphills to get the markets, and steep downhills, on often-slippery pathways (so much rain!), to get home, baskets on heads filled high.  They are also washing their clothes by hand in basins, but their spigot, if they can even get to one, is not a 50 feet from their door, surrounded by grass, beauty, and good drainage.  Their days are spent tending to household chores like back-breaking hand washing, walking steep miles in both directions to and from market, tending to children - all in muddy surroundings, with limited resources.  My hangups are so first-world, it astounds me by comparison … and shames me.  It’s amazing how humbling something as simple as hand-washing a small load of laundry can be, and how it compels an instant perspective shift.  Thank you ladies of Burundi, for teaching me about perspective, and thank you Laurel, for your wisdom, and the reminder that sometimes (most of the time?), it’s just good enough.