Wash Day in Cholua

Thursday, January 21, 1999

As Levi was putting on his socks today, he was lamenting the fact that his white socks looked dirty. He asked why I didn't get them clean any more. I had to explain that the wonderful, automatic, Canadian washing machine just couldn't get out the grime as effectively as a good old Mexican sink and a healthy dose of elbow grease. He figured I should go back to Mexico and buy a sink so that he could once again sport clean socks.

In our apartment building in Cholula the laundry facilities were located on the roof of the three-storey building. They consisted of five cement sinks with a built-in wash board located under the roof that you see in the photo. The water supply (cold only) for doing wash and for the building came from a well on the first floor in the hall. It was pumped up to asbestos tanks and then gravity fed to the building. Each resident staked out her own clothes lines or took over abandonned ones from previous tenants. We were warned not to leave clothes out on the line overnight as thieves might carry them away. One of our neighbours lost a couple of sweaters while we were there in broad daylight. I (Alan) washed our clothes by hand for the first month we lived in Mexico, much to the amusement of the neighbour ladies. They were most helpful/sympathetic in giving me some pointers to getting the wash clean. Once one of them asked me to go up to the roof as they thought a prowler was hiding in the wash area. Much to their and especially my relief it wasn't so. I miss the smell of line-dried clothes and the view of the volcano, Popocatepetl.

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last updated May 31, 1999