keeping house

A lot of things take a lot more work and time here in Mali than in the states. Without the modern conveniences of a clothes washing machine, dishwasher, or vacuum cleaner, it takes quite a bit more effort to keep things clean and tidy around here. Plus its usually sweaty hot and we have sand-dust constantly blowing into the house, which makes for really dirty clothes and floors that need to be washed all the time.
For a long time we had help just one morning a week. A nice lady named Fanta is our clothes washer. I washed my clothes (and towels and sheets) for several months myself when I first moved to Africa, and that was enough. When I washed my clothes myself I wound up with a sore back, raw hands, and only semi-clean clothes. Not an enjoyable way to spend several hours. I am so thankful for the lady who does our washing now. I'm glad I don't have to do it! I can save that time and energy to do more interesting things.

I finally gave up on trying to do everything else myself as well. There's a gal named Nyagali (that means joy in Bambara) who comes twice a week to help in the house. She cleans the floors and does some dusting, and she has made my life so much easier by her work in the kitchen. I send her to market and she comes back with food and then cooks up a nice African meal for lunch. She also saves me a lot of time by doing some food prep such as washing lettuce (it has to be soaked in bleach water), peeling carrots so they're ready to use, and sifting the bugs out of flour and bagging it up.

Here is Nyagali with a big bowl of "citrons" (like little lemony limes) from our tree. She squeezed them all and we still have bags of the juice in the freezer to make lemonade. Yum.