Laundry foibles

There is a laundry room two buildings over from ours, and I have frequented the room on several occasions. There are three washing machines and three dryers, though only two washing machines and two dryers actually work. Also, "work" is a fairly loose term, since typically clothes are not very dry after a run in the dryer.

As mentioned in previous posts, it seems to be a novelty for a Moroccan man to do laundry or cook. Also, many of the folks living here in the Al Akhawayn residences hire a woman from town to cook, clean and do laundry for them. Each time I've gone to the laundry room, there have been one or two Moroccan maids in the laundry room who have found it pretty entertaining that I am there. The first time, they watched attentively as I added soap and loaded my clothes into the washer, all the while whispering in Arabic. After a few minutes, one woman went over to my washing machine, opened it and stirred all of our clothes around with a broom handle. After this show of expertise, she then proceeded to ask if a I needed someone to cook and clean for me (in French, which took me quite a while to understand). I said no, that I have plenty of time to do these things myself. She and her friend laughed and whispered some more in Arabic. The other then went over to a dryer she was using, opened it and showed me how things placed inside such a machine might tumble in warm air and eventually become dry. I thanked her for the lesson. Every time I've done laundry since, someone has offered to be our maid.

A quick reference to the inefficient dryers: inevitably, I have to hang some of our laundry for it to actually dry. There are lines outside; however, these are four flights of stairs down, and until recently I had no clothespins. The wind blows viciously in Ifrane, and I could easily see a pair of heavy jeans being carried to Meknes without a clothespin or three holding them in place. Displaying McGyver-like prowess, I would go about setting up "drying racks" all over our apartment. I had no rope, so I used an extension cord over the window to hang stuff. I also put chairs in each of the windows and draped heavier clothes there.

This approach worked swimmingly until the last time I did laundry. I was working on the computer, went to check one of my "racks" and found all the clothes missing. I ran down the four flights of stairs and retrieved them from the ground outside. I then proceeded to my other drying "rack", and watched as the billowing sail created by a pair of Sam's jeans caused the precariously balanced chair to blow out the window. The chair fell four stories, didn't kill anyone below and didn't shatter into a thousand pieces, which was miraculous. Last time I went to the marche, I made it a priority to find some line and clothespins and made a clothes line outside our window.