Well world, meet Guatemalan laundry- the pila. It´s a 3part sink- 1 side is smoother (for washing dishes, I think), 1 side is ridged (for scrubbing clothes) and the middle is deep and full of water. So since we´re all pretty much running out of clothes, Laura, Katharine, and I decided to (attempt to)do our laundry together at Laura´s house- but every Guatemalan house has (at least) 1 pila.
So. You start by putting all of your clothes in a bucket of water with powder soap stuff. Then, one by one, you pull them out and give them a scrub on the pila- adding more soap if it´s an especially dirty article. Then, using little bucket-dish things, you scoop water from the middle (where the faucet it) and rinse and wring out the article until there are no more bubbles. THEN, you put the clothes in something (shout out to my baggu re-usable shopping bag that doubles as a laundry basket) until you can bring them home to hang on the line. All of this happens while various Guatemalans walk by and laugh at (with) us. It took about 40 mins to do it, and honestly, world- it wasn´t that bad! Lord knows how our clothes are going to look when they´re dry (sometime tomorrow?), but it was actually nice to wash our stuff together because we got to chat and laugh together. Also, it was SO much more environmentally-friendly!! 
So am I renouncnig washing machines? No. But am I dreading the next load of laundry I have to do? Why no, no I am not- because there´s something really beautiful about washing your skivies by hand and then hanging them up for all the world to see.bendiciones, juli
So many uses for the Baggu! :)
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