Housecleaning-don't laugh, Dad!!

House cleaning is quite an experience, I’ve found. There is an inordinate amount of dust around here (although not as bad as just outside of town), yet there are few vacuum cleaners. Instead, there is the birch-twig broom that is used to sweep carpets and floors. I made the mistake of picking up my hall carpet (a rather long carpet runner) to take it to the balcony to shake out. Imagine my surprise when immediately fine dust particles began to rain down all over the hallway—filling the air with a dark cloud and seeping into the smallest crevices imaginable. The aforementioned birch broom does little to sweep up this type of dust. Instead, it was me, a rag, and a bucket of water that I used to swab down the floors and walls. Every 2 minutes, the water would be black and have to be emptied—and then the floor had to be washed two or three times before it was truly clean.

Fortunately, housecleaning usually doesn’t take too long. The same can’t be said for laundry, though. I am lucky to have a washing machine here in the apartment, since there are no Laundromats to be found anywhere. Without a washing machine, laundry would need to be done in the bathtub. Of course, that’s not far from my reality even with the washing machine—which more accurately should be called an agitator. To do laundry, I first place a wooden shelf across the bathtub, and then sit the machine (which looks like a large box) on the shelf. After checking to ensure that the hose is attached underneath the machine, I put a few clothes into the agitator and add some laundry soap. Next, I turn on the faucet and fill the machine with as much water as necessary. Finally, I turn it on and wait about 10 minutes for it to finish. The second stage requires draining the water out of the agitator into buckets, and pouring the water into the toilet to flush away (so the lint doesn’t block the tub drain). Then, I add more water and continue the process until the water is relatively clean (about 4-5 cycles). The clothes then come out of the agitator and are rinsed in the bathtub before being hung to dry on the clotheslines on the balcony (there are no dryers in Almaty). It’s quite a process—but if the clothes are hung out before 11am, they will be dry by mid-afternoon. The sun is pretty strong around here, so it doesn’t take too long—you just need to take the clothes in quickly, before they are faded by the sun or get full of dust.