This was an interesting week for me. At first I was very lonely and bored. I missed having a companion here with me during the day. My visitor from last week left to go home. The first day I was so bored that I organized the grocery store bags that we use for trash. I used old apple juice containers to create dispensers for the bags. I cut the bottom on three sides to create an hinged like opening to put the bags in. I used tape to cover the jagged edges from the cutting. The most labor intensive part of this process was actually sorting the bags, large versus small and then systematically folding the bags and linking them so that when you pull one out another one is pulled up and is ready for the next time. I was serious about this little project and I'm very proud of my creation. Here are some pics.
I realized just this week that I am legit a real live housewife. I went from being a retired IT Director to a Dominican house wife. How did I get from there to here? It's a story of love, compromise, major cultural differences, love, communication, miscommunication, faith, hope and love. The greatest of these things is love. After this week and this realization of my new role I must say that I have a new found respect for housewives. I’ve been here for 5 weeks now and each week that I've been here it I've taken on more domestic responsibilities. You see in the beginning there was a sister which I called her my sister wife because she did everything that a wife would do for my husband except sleep with him. So when I first starting visiting and up until this last trip I never cooked or cleaned anything. I wasn't allowed to. His sister was here everyday to do all the cooking and cleaning. At first it was nice to be able to come here and relax and have someone else take care of those things. However as more time passed and I began to spend more time here and especially after we got married it became an issue for me. I didn't think it was appropriate for her to be doing all of those things. So I've slowly been taking over these tasks from her. It hasn't been easy trust me but this is the first week that I've done all the cooking, cleaning and washing of the clothes for my husband and I. I have no idea how housewives do it when they have kids cause this is a mess. Like where does the time go? He leaves for work in the morning and the next thing I know he’s coming home. I barely have time to clean and this is a very small house. It’s a little two bedroom one bathroom house. I'm trying to cook and like where does the time go? I do spend a lot of time at the grocery store. I cannot shop here like I shop at home. At home I can get groceries for the whole week or couple of weeks. I can’t do that here for a number of reasons. One it’s hot and humid. A lot of things are going to go bad so you don’t want to buy things in large quantity. Even though we have a refrigerator and I put stuff in the refrigerator it turns off every day for like a couple of hours because of the electricity issue. So there are things that do not last very long even in there because of the constant temperature fluctuations.
I've mastered the cooking thing now but not without some hiccups. Now that my husband enjoys my cooking so much we're having an issue with getting the communication and timing down. My husband is supposed to work until 4 pm and I know that when he comes home from work he usually likes to eat right away. Please pay attention to the word usually. This week we had some minor conflicts because of schedule changes, expectations and severe hunger LOL. Let me tackle expectations first. I expect food to be eaten when it's cooked because I do not like cold or room temperature food. My husband expects there to be food whenever he's hungry LOL. Most of the time when he comes home from work he's hungry and wants to eat right away. Those are the good days because it meets my expectation and I make sure there's food ready by 4 pm. Some days he doesn't want to eat right away he has other things he wants to do first. The food is ready and I want to eat but he doesn't. Then there's the days when he gets off early and walks in and expects food to be ready but it's not. So after realizing we had different expectations we sat down and talked. We both agreed that food will be ready by 4 pm. If he eats it when it's hot great if not it will be there when he gets hungry later.
This weeks challenge was taking on washing the clothes. That was an adventure because it's very different how it's done here. It was an all day event and I only got my husbands clothes and a load of towels done the first day. The towels need to be washed again though because they didn’t dry properly so they smell funny. So let me describe the process for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about. There is this small appliance that they call a washing machine or Lavado.
It’s pretty small but it actually does clean the clothes, yes I was surprised. There is one side where you put water, detergent and set the timer and it swishes the clothes around in a circular motion. There is no blade or anything like in my washing machine at home. Just the circular swishing motion. My machine does have two settings Fuerte (hard) and normal. On the other side of this appliance is the spin or wind dry. So here is the process. You fill the washer side up with how ever much water you need for the load. While the water is being added you add your detergent which is a mixture of power and some soap which is a bar and you cut it with a knife. After the water is added and the soap has been added you put the clothes in and select the time for washing 3, 6, 9, 12 or 15 minutes are the options I have. I should add that while you are filling it with water it is very important to make sure that it’s set to wash and not drain or all the water will just come out. Of course I learned that lesson the hard way. After the clothes are finished washing you don’t just put them in the wind dry spinner. You need two separate huge buckets, one with plain water to rinse and the second one with water and softener. Remove clothes from the washer put into the plain water to rinse and then put into the water with the softener, then you put in the wind dry to spin as much of the water out as possible before you hang the clothes to dry. SO here is where things get a little dicey for me. I do not like grass. I don’t ever want to walk in it even with shoes on if possible. It’s worse here because there is so much trash and all types of animal feces everywhere. There is a clothes line but it’s behind the house which requires me to walk through a bunch of nonsense that I’m just not going to do. For my maiden washing voyage I decided to use hangers and clothes pins and hang the clothes out front on the patio. It worked well for the shirts and some of the pants but not for the towels so I am going to have to come up with something better for that for the next time. My husband suggested that I put the clothes up on the roof to dry. You're probably thinking, the roof? What in the world so let me explain. Almost all of the houses here have steps leading up to the roof but there nothing up there. I mean it looks weird to see a single level house with concrete steps leading to nothing right? That's what you see a lot here and now I understand why. I haven’t ever been up those steps so I have no idea what it looks like up there but I will need to investigate it for future use because the backyard is not an option for me at all. I learned that this little machine does actually clean but I need to use more detergent and also I need to leave the clothes in the softener water a little longer. Refine my drying process and try to get my timing down so it doesn’t take as long. Here is a pic of my bathroom during the clothes washing process.
Stay tuned for more from the Real housewives of the Dominican Republic next week right here on Random Thoughts from Author Terri D's blog.
Sorry, there ain't enough love in the world for me to do all that..can you say disposable garments?? Lol
ReplyDeleteTrust me I understand your sentiments. I actually started looking for flights to go home halfway through the process the first day I was so frustrated.
DeleteI’m entertained.
ReplyDeleteHey auntie. So glad you stopped by and were entertained.
DeleteTalk about being outside of your comfort zone! I have just started reading your blogs. Your writing puts me right there with you which is what I consider great writing. I am in awe of how quickly you are adapting!
ReplyDeleteDebi I finally figured it out. For some reason your comment was in the spam folder. Thanks so much for your kind words and for your support. Yes this is completely outside of my zone and I am surprised myself at how well I am adapting to it all. I hope that you will continue reading because I plan to keep writing.
Deletehi Terri this is Cyd. Girl, you are GOOD!!! I think I would rather wash them clothes out by hand then to go through all that. LOL.
ReplyDeleteI was exhausted for you just reading this, but this blog is very well written a good read :)
Cyd - thanks for stopping by and checking out my blog. Yes girl it is an exhausting process trust me.
DeleteHey Teri - it’s Pam Hutcherson from work... I’ve spent some time in the DR so I’m aware of the Washing marching but i certainly didn’t know about the rinse/softener side of things. Hey, you could always have your housewife keep that as her chore then the grass wouldn’t be an issue. Somehow I don’t think that’ll be happening - lol. The roof tops on all houses are really nice - some houses have them more setup in a patio style and they are decorated than some others. Have a blast
ReplyDeleteHi Pam - It's good to hear from you. I Hope all is well with you. It's also nice to hear from someone who understands what I'm talking about who can speak English LOL. I'm going to keep writing about my experiences here and I hope you will keep on reading.
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