We take laundry for granted here in the U.S. It may be a necessary chore that some people don’t like but we certainly have it easier than some other countries.
In India, 8,000 dhobis, or washermen, gather at the world’s largest outdoor laundry in Mumbai where they beat the clothes against rocks to get rid of the dirt, then rinse and air dry them. In many parts of Europe dryers are rare. Instead, people hang their laundry outside or on dryer racks. Similarly, in Italy most Venetians string their wet laundry outside their windows, over the canals. In some parts of impoverished Africa and Central and South America they use nature’s washing machine – they wash their clothes in a nearby stream.
And do you know how astronauts wash their clothes? They don’t. When they start to accumulate too much dirty laundry they put them in an old spaceship and launch their dirty clothes towards Earth. No, it isn’t the ultimate laundry delivery service. The spaceship burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere – no more dirty clothes to worry about.
So laundry may be a pain for some people to do, but in comparison, we have it easy.
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