How to Wash Your Clothes at Al-Ballouti

Someone asked at one of our pre-departure meetings whether or not we'd have access to a laundry facility in Jordan, and Maisel said yes. So when a bottle of lotion exploded in my suitcase somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and I arrived in Amman with half as many clean clothes as I left with, I drew the short straw by default when it came to asking the fellows at the front desk where we could do our washing.

"Five minutes," they said, and sent me back upstairs. Five minutes later, as promised, the maintenance guys brought us this:


It took a little time to figure out exactly how it worked...


...and not much time after that to decide that we'd be better off doing our laundry in the sink, because that stupid thing is a waste of space and water, not to mention an endless frustration.

This morning, as I contemplated my socks drying outside our bedroom window, it occurred to me that I will never, ever again take a real washing machine for granted.