all purpose

last night while skyping with my dad he asked me how I wash my clothes. He knew by hand but how?

Then I realized I had yet to explain the most important domestic device used here in rural El Salvador. THE PILA.

Let me show you around the above photo and try to explain what we are dealing with here.

First lets start with the huge concrete hunk in the middle of this photo. THIS my friends is my rather hefty and charming PILA. Pronounced: Peel.uh

How does it work?

In the middle is a deep basin where the water is filled up to the top (the stopper doesn’t fit so mine is not filled up) with the pole sticking out of the ground and bends over so the faucet can easily fill the basin.

Then one uses that water to

1. Wash dishes (see blue bowl and coffee mug)

2. Wash Clothes

3. Wash Body

Lets continue our tour shall we?

The middle water basin is flanked by two flat and slightly tilted surfaces. This is where the scrubbing of the clothes and dishes is done.

First, clothes are soaked in detergent in the green bucket on the ground just to the left of the pila.

This bucket is called a Guacal 

Pronounced:  Wa.Kall

Soaking the clothes for 20-30 min is sufficient. Then scrub a dub dub amigo.

Next on our tour is the semi-private and sometimes delicate bathing area, please note broken pieces strewn about. I’ve had to re-hang these plastic barriers more than 3 times. It’s jimmied with a combo of packaging tape, string, a couple of rusty nails, some cursing and a prayer.

This orange turquoise combos is my design so I’ll fight to the death for it or at least until some unsuspecting salvos get a view of my bare bum. It really lets you know you are in the tropics if the banana trees and birds of paradise don’t.

You may not be able to see but behind the turquoise plastic tarp lays a larger black guacal. Fill it with water, then using a smaller guacal to bucket ice-cold water over your head and bam before you know it you’re bathing.

That concludes this episode of washing in the Campo.

Please join next week when I describe how to kill vermin in your house while leaving your abode smelling fresh.  

(what you’ll need: lavender scented Raid)