washing clothes - an embarassing story

So first a history of my clothes washing experience in Mali. Then an embarrassing story...

When I came in 2009 I learned that most people here (and in fact most of the world) wash their clothes by hand, not in a modern machine.
For the first 6 months of my life in Mali I washed all of my clothes (plus towels, bedsheets...) myself.  This is exhausting work.  I was single then, so it was only my own clothes, but that was enough to take up several hours each week and leave me with an aching back.
Here's a quick summary of how washing clothes by hand works:  You pour water by bucketful into a tub basin.  You throw in a few dirty clothes and then either add powdered soap or rub the clothes with a bar of clothes washing soap.  You are supposed to rub the clothes against themselves in your two hands, or some people use a washing board.  Add soap as needed, and keep scrubbing.  Then you have to rinse, probably in 2 different buckets because the first rinsing water gets soapy quickly.  Then you try to wring as much water out as possible and hang each item on a clothes line to dry.  Don't forget your clothes on the line too long or they will get rained on, full of dust, or even stolen. (My clothes never went missing, but a friend lost most of his wardrobe one time!)
After 6 months of that I finally broke down and started paying a lady a few dollars each time to wash my clothes, and she left me with cleaner clothes, a few extra hours per week, and a less sore back.

After we got married a woman came to the house once a week to do laundry.  I was glad to pay the few dollars to not have to wash the clothes myself, but I never felt very good about the situation.  I felt bad to see the lady working so hard, I missed the way in which I used to be able to toss a load of clothes in a washer any day of the week, and I still washed all of my own underwear and delicate items myself.

After 4 years in Mali we were able to buy a small used washing machine at a low price.  I was so happy!  I could wash clothes whenever I wanted and the machine would do all of the scrubbing!  We used this machine for the last 2 years, and it still works, but it's a bit finicky.  It has lots of buttons, but only one cycle actually works.  If the power cut we would have to start the cycle over from the beginning; you couldn't just rinse or drain and spin or whatever. 

So when I saw an advertisement for a nicer newer used washer a few months ago I looked into it. We were able to buy the pictured washer for half the price of a new one.  When we went to pick it up, the folks who were preparing to leave the country for good gave me an unused bottle of "Soupline" to go along with it. Bonus!  The other machine was not a front loader, and I had always just thrown in some powered washing soap.  I think front loaders sometimes need a special kind of soap.

We eventually got the new machine hooked up and started using it.  The bottle of "Soupline" made me laugh and crave soup when I read it's  name.  On the bottle it says "Concentrated Format, 54 washes, lavender of the hills, A caress of freshness all day"  and then on the back of the bottle something about fresh and soft clothes and a picture showing a capful for each load of clothes.

I washed my clothes using "Soupline" for about 2 months, and it did leave a nice lavender smell.  And though I was happy about the new machine's choices of cycles, I didn't feel that the machine got the clothes particularly clean.

Then we went to Bamako and I wanted to find some more laundry soap at the grocery store.  At the grocery store I felt confused and overwhelmed by the selection of laundry products.  There was no "Tide" or anything I could recognize, I couldn't even find more "Soupline."  There were two sections of bottles of different sizes, smells, prices.  I examined them and couldn't find the word for "soap" anywhere.  Why were some in the left section and some in the right section?  I finally decided some of them might be fabric softener... but the labels were not helpful.  I got a store worker to help.  He said that the left section was softeners and the right section soaps. But why do none of them say "soap" and why are all of the labels so unclear?!
It was then that I suspected what is in fact true... that for 2 months I had been "washing" our laundry with fabric softener.  I bought some soap, but I also discovered that I can just use the cheaper powdered soap in the machine.  Live and learn!

I also learned that the word "lessive" (written on the Apta soap bottle) technically means "washing powder" or "detergent" or "washing," but I've always only heard the word used here in the third sense "washing" as in "I'm going to do the (clothes) washing."  So I've thought of it as  "washing" or "laundry" and of course all of the bottles are for doing laundry! Plus the softener bottle says "54 lavages" which is "54 washes" so that seems like it could be soap! 
JP asked me if I hadn't noticed that there never seemed to be any bubbly foamy suds in the washer (you can see through the glass door while the washer is washing) and I guess I just hadn't thought about it.  It's probably good for me to make stupid mistakes once in a while to stay humble, right?