Monday, August 15, 2011

Modern Day Miracle: Viking Ring


So today was the big laundry day that I have been waiting for. It took me about 2.5 hours to do all the laundry by hand. It wasn't just my laundry, but also some things left behind by the previous volunteer, Danielle. If it was just clothes it would have been a lot faster, but there were beach towels and bedding, so those were hard to wash and rung out by hand. By the end of the 2.5 hours my hands were like prunes...haha. They got some good old fashion work done today. It seemed that everyone was doing their laundry today. There were a total of 5 people in the laundry room, all bent over in their big washing buckets, just going at it with the laundry. We all passed around soap and laundry detergent to use. One of the aunties was washing all the babies and toddler's clothing, and I have super respect for her, because that is a lot of work. It is a daily job and no wonder they are so tired by the end of the day. Haitians really like to make sure their clothes are clean, so they usually use a ridiculous amount of soap for their laundry load. So while I was washing my clothes, I hear all the aunties saying, "Put more soap in, that's not enough, that's not going to get cleaned." haha, it was funny. I just kept reassuring them that it was enough and it was going to be fine. They all looked at me with very disapproving eyes. So I was washing and rinsing, washing and rinsing, and then rung everything out in the buckets. Finally, at the end I was really to go put all the clothes that I just washed on the clothing line outside to dry. The good thing in Haiti is that it is so hot that the clothes dry all in a couple of hours. I hung up all the clothes and one of the girls helped me with the clothes pins, she was a very good little helper. I finished everything and got back to my room and started to look at my hands and realized OH NO, WHERE'S MY RING???? That was when panic set in. I quickly ran back into the laundry room and started looking. No where to be found. I followed the water pipe to where there was a broken place and started to dig under the pipe to see if it had washed out. The aunties and children helped me looked for it too. The water smelled like sewage and we were all digging through it. No where to be found. Oh shoot. So then I ran back to the clothing line area to see if it might have fallen on the ground. Nope, did not see it. I was about to give up, but then I thought maybe I should check all the clothing on the clothing line just in case. This was a long shot, but I thought I had to give it a try, because the ring meant the world to me. The ring, a ring with viking symbols on it, was given to me by my boyfriend Greg. He had that ring ever since he was little and gave it to me, so it was something super special. So I started to look through all the clothing, pockets, seam lines and had no luck. Then I finally got to the bedding sheets and there was a folded area in the corner of the sheets and I stuck my hand in there to feel around and WHAT???? The ring was right in there. I grabbed it out in utter disbelief!!! This was a modern day miracle for sure! The ring had slipped from my finger, into the soapy water, got mixed and tumbled into the sheets and didn't fall out at all on the clothing line???? Yeah it was a miracle and I am totally not complaining. This is a sign! I will make sure to remember to take off my ring from now on when I do laundry! What a relief when I found the ring!

1 comment:

  1. what a miracle! what a lundry day!
    try to wear gloves next time when you do lunday, it will protect your hands and prevent rings slip from your fingers.
    what a relief you finally found greg's viking ring!

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