Friday, July 24, 2009

Laundry Day


I am still mostly sitting on my backside doing schoolwork these days, but only two weeks left of this class. I admit that I do get distracted by Facebook (am finding a lot of old friends there these days!) and listening to good music on a regular basis, but I have not actually gotten out of the house so much. My dear husband though, some weeks ago he, well insisted that we should go away for our anniversary. So, we did, to Fort Kochi (Kochin/Cochin) in Kerala. The last photo I shared was from that trip as well. But today I wanted to tell a little about the laundry that we visited, the dhoby khana.

As we entered the area, we saw a large area covered with poles and ropes. This is where they would generally dry much of the clothing, but of course, this being monsoon season, few were using this area to dry things.

As we came around the side we saw the work spaces that each of them use. Each has their own assigned space where they wash the clothes. Looked like hard work.


Nearby was a covered shed, where at this time of year they hang most of the laundry to dry. Notice how they don't need clothespins?


Inside is where they also do the ironing. Wow. These are some serious irons. This guy, who I was told was 70 something years old, offered to let me pick up the iron. I couldn't. Seriously. It was far too heavy. Of course, once you lift it and place it on the fabric, that also means that the iron is doing a lot of the work for you, so that is the good part.



Another man was working with a coal iron...


And finally, someone was starching shirts.



It was an amazing place to see.

6 comments:

Mridula said...

But how did you manage to end up at Dhobi Khana :D

Angeluna said...

Very interesting. Amazing they can keep all that laundry straight.

Amy said...

Very interesting! I love seeing the transformation from dirty laundry to crisp, starched and washed clothes. Loved reading it and the photos added a nice touch!

Cindy/Snid said...

We ended up at Dhobi Khana because we had a very fun auto driver who wanter to give us an "interesting" tour of Fort Kochin. He succeeded!

To keep the laundry straight they have a marking/tagging system. They also have their "regular customers" and so get to know the laundry much as we would when doing our families laundry.

Rima said...

Totally LOVE these pictures.

Anonymous said...

I too loved these pictures, as I'm extremely fascinated by the laundry process in India!