When I was a girl, the term washing machine was not part of my vocabulary. To clean our clothes we used the trampling technique – or washed by hand. A stream with concrete on the sides ran through our village. If you will, the creek was our semi-automatic washing machine. Then, when I moved to the big city of Kampala to study at university, I cleaned my laundry in the sink. My entire life before 30 I had never been near a washing machine. And so my first encounter here in Munich was like a miracle. How I enjoyed watching electricity at work.
For both of us, the washing machine has become like a third roommate. Unlike me back then, my daughter Taliah is very happy to help out with laundry day because of this machine. The first time she sat down in front of the machine and watched the washing program in its entirety for more than an hour. She was just as intrigued as I was. She supports me with her little fingers when opening the door. When she grabs the ball of laundry to stuff it into the opening, she disappears completely behind it. I’m careful not to press the start button, that’s her job alone, she insists.
Unfortunately, our roommate recently started having a problem. The drum filled with water but stopped moving the clothes and steadfastly refused to spin and drain. I had never disassembled a washing machine before, but with the help of Youtube and a cordless screwdriver I managed to do it. But how do you fix something like this? The trampling technique, so my guess, would help less here.
The dirty laundry was slowly but surely spilling out over the laundry basket. After careful investigation, I finally came to the conclusion that the fault must be traced back to a small strand: a metal lid switch that appeared to be brittle and was allowing water to flow where it wasn’t supposed to. I found the replacement part online and ordered it. But because of the weekend it didn’t and didn’t arrive. I found that just obsessively tracking a package online doesn’t make it any faster.
In the meantime I could have filled two, rather three laundry baskets. It’s hard to believe what a small and a large person can own in terms of synthetic quantities. In Uganda it was much simpler: little fabric – tiny mounds of clothes. No mountains far and wide.
And now this. After four days, the water in the machine had turned into a juggernaut-like brew, which you could tell by the smell. Despite good basic training, hand washing didn’t come to mind. It would have taken days. laundromat? Here I was put off by the heavy transport that was due. Then the replacement part finally arrived. I’m sure the package shone brightly like an icon. A good friend helped me and Thalia to install the lid switch. Yay! Our third roommate has recovered.