Doing household chores

June 22, 2017

In the first place, I had board and lodging because that's how I booked it with Study Lingua, the language travel agency. The package included laundry once a week.
In the second place, in the Shuar community, I also had board and lodging, although meal times were somewhat variable. Most importantly, I slept like a baby in the jungle. However, laundry was my responsibility there. I think I could have asked if I could have had someone clean my laundry for payment, but I found it challenging to get the laundry clean and 'odorless' again using manual labor with river water, a brush, and soap.
Here at the foundation, I do everything myself. Cooking with all the trimmings and the laundry, although the machine here is much easier to operate than the one at home. Or maybe I should just tackle it seriously at home. There's no other way here, otherwise it won't be odorless.

Suddenly, it becomes clear that normal things take time. That you can do them well or poorly. Well, no problem. As I mentioned yesterday, I have time. No rush, so I can seriously focus on the golden-brown crust of the morning omelet and properly hanging up the pants so that not too many wrinkles get into them.
We also work together occasionally. For example, yesterday Laura and I cooked pasta (which takes a long time at an altitude of 3100 m). However, I used a ready-made pesto sauce, whereas Laura mixed her own sauce from tomatoes and other ingredients. Since we bought a few ingredients for the local supply last week (balsamic vinegar, olive oil, oregano, and others), I feel quite comfortable in the kitchen. Especially since digestion is back to normal. That's even though I simply bought and ate an apple at the market the day before yesterday without following the rule of peeling or cooking it (touch wood!).

In any case, to get to the point, I see the value of household chores one level higher again, with the positive awareness that I can actually do it myself. Here in our three-person apartment, I'm the one who empties the buckets and takes the garbage bags to the disposal point at the moment. So it annoys me a little that the toilet buckets, in which the used toilet papers have to be thrown, fill up so quickly again. I think it's really bad when toilet rolls, packaging, and other waste are thrown into them. The special waste bag has to be taken out, buttoned up, and disposed of all the faster. If I didn't know that I would be somewhere else in a little over two weeks, with other people (I'm really excited about it!!!) and toilets where you can throw the used papers, then I would call a flatmate meeting and explain the toilet issue, or create a plan for who has to do what when. But actually, I don't care.
Almost don't care.