23 May 2019 / leggypeggy

The challenges of drying laundry

laundry, Overlanding West Africa, travel, water, West Africa

Laundry draped on rocks

Laundry hung between buildings and draped on bushes

I love getting comments on my blog and a recent one (by Susan over at onesmallwalk)

Great market, such colorful displays. But it was the laundry in the breeze
that makes me want to visit—Susan.

has prompted me to do a post devoted to laundry in Africa.

Frankly, I love seeing laundry being dried around the world. The colours, the fabrics, the breezes, the ingenuity.

Hotel bedding spread on the ground and on a line

Laundry draped on a fence

The ingenuity? There’s plenty of ingenuity. It’s important to remember that not everyone in the world has a clothesline or a clothes dryer. In fact, not everyone can afford clothespins (pegs in Australia). So getting clothes washed and dried requires a certain amount of creativity.

We understand that. On camping trips—heck on almost all of our trips—we carry a bag with laundry soap, clothesline, pegs and a universal plug. It’s usually quite easy to find a sink but not always easy to find a plug. Trust me, a wadded up sock doesn’t keep water from oozing quickly down a drain.

Interesting to note that Liberia was the first time we saw clothespins (pegs) being widely used. The photos here are from several West African countries.

Laundry on bamboo poles and clotheslines

Laundry on bamboo poles

So here is a collection of pics that show how West Africans get clothes dried.

The rooftop and balcony pics at the bottom show clothes that belong to us and other people on our truck. I found these drying spaces quite by chance. Some of us camped in tents and others opted for cheap rooms. Most of us put in laundry—nice to have a break from doing your own washing.

Laundry drying outside a shop

We were told that the upstairs was unfinished. They said the rooms weren’t complete or furnished. The snoop in me thought I’d go up and have look. The rooms were as described and the laundry was in full sight.

As an aside, I’ve written many posts about laundry and there will be more to come. Here’s one from Burkino Faso and another from India.

So how do you get your laundry dry?