If there is anything that Egypt has an abundant supply of, it is sunlight and heat. I am really hoping, now that Egypt has a new president in office, he will realize the potential power source that Egypt has in the year-round sunlight it acquires and begin to really find a way to utilize it. The solar power that could be generated here boggles the mind and yet it is a technology that has not really been firmly established here (on a grand scale anyway). There are other ways, however, that the sun IS used to its fullest potential here in the Land of the Never-Ending Sun….. when the laundry is hung to dry.
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| Laundry from a neighbor's balcony blowing in the breeze. |
You will be hard pressed to find a person WITH an electric or gas clothes dryer here. MOST folks in the larger cities have a washing machine, but in the poorer and more rural areas even that is a serious luxury. Folks from the countryside are more likely to be found doing their laundry in metal basins or beating them against rocks (no joke). Hany’s mom does indeed have a washing machine and she actually happens to have a dryer as well. Hany and his family lived stateside for many years and one of the things they brought back was an avocado green General Electric dryer. (Sort of gives you an idea of when he did in fact live in the U.S.) It is however very rarely used. There is just not a need to waste the electricity for one when the sun shines almost 365 days a year here.
Each time I return to Egypt, it always takes me a few attempts at hanging laundry to really get the hang of it again. The balcony where our clotheslines are installed is located on the backside of the building. Hany’s mom’s apartment is technically on the first floor, but it is NOT street level. It actually sits about 25 feet off the ground. I have become wise to the ways of successful clothes hanging, and his sister was kind enough to give me a few pointers the very first time I hung a load to dry (back in 1995). The first thing I do is grab a handful of clothes pins and put them on the edge of the balcony wall (careful not to knock them off the edge). I then grab the larger articles of clothing (pants, towels, sheets etc.) and hang them on the OUTSIDE lines. Hany’s mom’s clothes lines curve around the sides of the balcony and they have about 10 different short lines to hang things from. Not a big area, but it usually holds a load of laundry. You have to make sure the items you hang are really secure, if not, they will fall to the dusty, greasy area behind the apartment building. No man’s land as far as laundry (or anything else for that matter) is concerned. NO ONE goes back there except a few grungy cats and city rats, and no one will ever attempt to rescue a fallen sock or even a beloved shirt. It falls? It’s a goner. Every time you go to hang another load of laundry, you will be forced to look down at the lost article of clothing until, after a stretch of time, it is swallowed by the layers of accumulating dirt, car fumes and grime that settle and eventually turn EVERYTHING here in the city a depressing shade of gray.
Once the item is
secure, you continue hanging the other articles of clothing in order of
size. The smaller items are usually
things like underwear, bras etc. These
items are strategically hung closest to the walls so that the bigger items are
covering them from view. Egyptians are
very modest people, I guess they don’t want weirdos on the street gawking up at
their unmentionables. Hanging small
items closest to the wall is also a strategic move as you don’t want your
clothing blowing against the side of the building on a windy day….if they
scrape up against it....you will have to wash it again as it will absolutely
turn black. Smaller items don’t blow
around as much.
I can’t believe
I have managed to write this much about hanging a load of laundry and I am not
finished yet.
The clothesline I
am privy to use has an added challenge.
Just below the balcony is a business that has been open for a couple of
years. It is a small business that sells
freshly grilled fish. The fish sit on
ice just below the clotheslines and when an order comes in, they are grilled
right there just a few feet over. So
where do you think all this lovely fishy smelling smoke goes? Yup…straight up and in to whatever clothing
or linens you may have hanging. So now I
must hang my freshly laundered clothes at night after the fish place has closed
down for the evening and take them in before they re-open the next day. Having a fish “grill” located just beneath
your apartment has been a bit of an inconvenience for Hany’s mom as the windows
of two of her bedrooms sit on the same side as the grill . Don’t get me wrong, their fish is GREAT (we
just had it for dinner tonight in fact) but having to deal with that smoky fish
smell all day can be a drag. Thank
goodness it is not TOO overwhelming, but occasionally, on a windy day, you have
to forego opening the shutters to let in fresh air as the smell may be a bit
much. I am extremely grateful the fish
place was not open when I was here and pregnant with Heema 11 years ago. I would had to move somewhere else. Nothing brought on the nausea and had me
running for the porcelain faster than the smell of seafood. Uck.
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| Looking down through my hanging laundry. You can see how close the fish are! |
If you get a load
of laundry hung up in the dead heat of the day and there happens to be a slight
breeze that day, your clothes will be dry in less than an hour. You never want to leave it up longer than it
needs to dry however because those that do not live above a fish place DO have to
be wary of car and bus fumes, a factor we also have to consider. They can ruin a load of clean laundry almost
as fast as fishy smoke. The sun is also SO strong that it will start to bake
your clothes if you leave them out for too long! Nothing like an extra crispy pair of underwear
to keep your day really interesting. They are, however, thoroughly sanitized!
Hanging your clothes to dry in the sun also eliminates the “fluff” factor you
get from clothes dried in a dryer.
Clothes on a line can stretch from the weight of the moisture and just
plain ol’ gravity. Your favorite sweater
will hang to your knees if you don’t place it on the line properly! My favorite
is when your t-shirts have a “horn” on each shoulder from where the clothespins
were grasping it, you have to lay the t-short over the line a bit and then pin
it. So many things to consider!
On any given day in Cairo, if you take the
time to look up when you are moving around the city, you will see hundreds and
hundreds of lines of drying clothes. I
have always liked the way it gives blobs of color to the dusty gray buildings
around it. Watching lines filled with
colorful blankets and towels dancing around in the wind just LOOKS neat. You
can always spot the homes that have a baby girl in their residence as there are
lines and lines of pink, purple and yellow outfits and dresses dangling down. I am always flabbergasted to look up to the
really high apartment complexes (20 floors or more) and seeing lines of drying
laundry! Can you imagine having to lean
over to the outer lines to hang heavy blankets and sheets when you are 20 or 30
stories up? No way. I get vertigo dealing with the 25 feet I have
to overcome at my mother in law’s apartment.
Even the little things like doing laundry are so different over
here.
OK, I think I may have begun to bore you with this subject. I love writing this blog as I believe that many of you back home might find the day to day activities that go on in other countries, and how they differ from the same activity in the states, fascinating. I certainly do. Believe me when I tell you that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of things I think you will find interesting.
All right, so in conclusion, the next time you pull out a
fluffy, freshly laundered towel from the dryer, put it to your nose and inhale
deeply. And then think of me over here
in Egypt trying to keep my towels from becoming crunchy to the touch and
smelling like Nile Perch.
On to the next adventure!
Inshallah…..
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