Before I got my own place in Niger, there was one typical volunteer thing that I hoped I would never have to do: wash my clothes by hand! Now, when Anette and I moved into this house, we inherited a semi-functional washing machine from the family that had lived there before us. The washing machine defect is that it doesn’t take in any water, so you have to fill it up by hand. Unfortunately, every wash requires 11 buckets (of the smaller kind), and therefore washing has become something of a Saturday task for me as it takes the whole day (the machine needs to be refilled five times).

Well, with all the tediousness involved, I can still come up with two things to be really, really grateful for:

1) I don’t have to wash by hand!

2) I didn’t have to tend to the washing machine more than handful of times when Anette was there, as she took it upon herself to do the refilling during those seven months. What a treat!