Laundry in Ghana

There are two ways to do laundry in Ghana. You can take it to the launders (above), where they charge you based on the weight of your clothes. (I never used this option so I’m not sure how much it costs OR you can do it yourself!

Having never really hand washed my clothes before, I wasn’t sure how to do it so I had a few of my Ghanaian friends teach me.

First, you need a bucket filled with water. We usually did laundry early (like 7am) on the weekends, so here I am with my water, ready for laundry and my breakfast. :)



Here are all my clothes :(. So much. I would usually wash every other week, and it would take me anywhere from 1.5-3 hours to finish everything.



Using Omo washing detergent (you can kind of see it in the picture) and a bar of soap (not pictured), I would wash garment by garment, light to dark. After washing it, I would try to squeeze as much soap and water out of the garment before soaking it in a second bucket of water. That second bucket of water would usually have a few capfuls of dettol disinfectant (the bottle pictured next to the bag of omo detergent).



After soaking in the dettol mix, I would rinse it again in another bucket of clean water, getting all the soap and such off before wringing it dry and hanging it in on the clothes line in the courtyard. I wish I had a picture to show...

Laundry ended up being a really good time to bond and talk to people. Sometimes, when I didn’t have anyone to wash with, I would do it by myself, using the silence as a time for contemplation.

I am really thankful to have a laundry machine at home. However, washing by hand isn’t too bad. It was nice to slow down and shift the gears of life into park for a while.