The Washboard

By Barae Hirsch

My arms throbbed. I poured more soap onto the cement washboard installed in the outdoor sink.  I scooped water onto the soapy clothes. I had traveled half way across the world to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.  I think I must have been crazy.  The people here couldn't say my name. So they named me 'Barbara' instead. Except they don't say 'Barbara' like we do. They say it 'Bar-bar-a'. I like it better in Spanish. It made me feel wanted to have another name. They cared enough that they wanted to be able to be friends with me. To know me.

 "Barbara. Hay otra ropa para lavando en la cocina." 'There are other clothes to wash in the kitchen.' "Pregunta a Lucila" 'Ask Lucila' Lucila was the owner of the house. She was short and stout and had a twinkling in her eye that made you feel at home. I went into the kitchen. "Lucila, Maria dijo que hay mas ropa para lavando en la cocina." 'Maria said that there is more clothes to wash in the kitchen.'

Maria was eleven. We stayed at her grandma's house, but she and a lot of other family members lived there too. None of my family members had come with me. "Si. Por alla."  'Yeah. Over there.' I went back outside. This was getting really confusing! "Maria. Lucila dijo que la ropa esta aqui. Tu dijiste que la ropa esta alla. !?Donde esta la ropa?! 'Maria, Lucila said the clothes are here. You said the clothes were there. Where are the clothes?' I had been washing clothes on their cement washboard outside. They had a basin full of water next to the washboard that was in the sink. It didn't take long to become part of this family.

At first, they wouldn't let me do any chores. After the first day, they let me help. I was glad. Because they did a whole bunch for me. They had a B&B. They only had three rooms to rent out. Olga built them, and she always got one of them when she came. Olga is whom I had gone with. They had moved me into the room that they slept in. Lucila had 8 kids, and 7 grandkids. It was a huge family. I loved them, except I didn't know them all.        

Olga owned a ranch in Las Pampas. Don't get me wrong, I loved San Juan del Sur, (the town we stayed in) but the ranch was a different story. The people were so nice. (Not that the people in San Juan del Sur weren't), just it was different. The landscape was to die for. There was cacao spread across the fields.  There were oxen. Huge, majestic creatures, with curved horns and a silver or gold nose ring.    The road was never flat. It had lots of little and big lomas 'hills'. If you climb up on the sand dunes on a horse, you can see farther than you would imagine the world could go. It was different from any place I've ever been.

 My hands slipped on the soapy water. I felt the hard scrubbers on the wash board digging into my palms. In my hands  was the dirty brown shirt belonging to a teenage boy living at Lucila's. I folded the top half once like a paper airplane. Then I scrubbed it until it was brown no more.  This meant it was clean. It would gain its color back after it was dried. This shirt was the ranch. Las Pampas. 

Olga has an organization called Tierra Madre. She buys bikes and uniforms and notebooks for the kids in Las Pampas. They can't go to school without uniforms. I'll never look at bikes in the same way again. They'll always have another meaning. These children, who barely owned anything besides the clothes off their back, and now Olga came and bought them bikes. They were ecstatic.

There was one girl, Marisol. Her dad had had her too young. He handed her off to her grandparents. She was eleven now. Her grandparents were in their early eighties.  Now she had to take care of them. I had gone up to her house with my camera. She was really excited to see a real camera.  She used up about an eighth of my memory card. But it was fine. It made me feel good to share something like that. I had asked her grandma if I could take a picture of her. It was perfect lighting.  She said "Claro". 'Of course.' I took it, and then showed the picture to her on the digital screen. She had never seen a picture of herself before.    When she saw it, she was so happy. " O. Que bonita. Que bella.  Que bonita. Que bonita."  'How pretty. How beautiful. How pretty. How pretty.' It almost made me cry. 

Now, a bathing suit belonging to a four-year-old girl whose grandma was Lucila. Her name was Darian. It was multi-colored and had a built-in skirt. She was always nagging me to come play with her. But I didn't mind. She was like a sister to me. We had a mutual love. It was the same with the other girls that lived at Lucila's. Again, it was the first time I had felt like that about someone outside of my family besides my closest friends and people who were like my mom, dad, uncle or aunt.  These were the people in Nicaragua.  Their compassion, their sweet personality.  I rinsed the suit in the basin.      

 I heard Hazel call: "Maria. Almuerso."  'Maria. Lunch.' Hazel  was the twenty-one year old. "Y Barbara tambien." 'And Barbara too.' "No gracias. Quiero terminar mi ropa."  'No thanks. I want to finish my clothes.' "Ok. Cuando estas lista." 'Ok. When you're ready."  I smiled to myself and slipped a twenty cordoba note into Maria's pocket. "Para huevos  y  leche. Y cual mas que quieres."  'For eggs and milk. And whatever else you want.' She smiled. "Gracias."  'Thanks.' Twenty cordobas was only one dollar. They weren't really poor. But it wasn't everyday someone handed you twenty cordobas and told you you could spend it anyway you want, either. But it was the least I could do. They took care of me. I washed my last shirt and dried up. I took off my clothes because my swimsuit was under it. I asked Maria if she wanted to go to the beach. She got on her suit and followed me.  

We stayed at the beach for about an hour, then came home. We took a two-minute shower, and then headed to the washboard in our towels to wash our bathing suits. I had washed about an hour or two more than usual today. In fact, I usually only washed, maybe one or two shirts in a whole day. But washing didn't just cleanse the clothes I was washing, it cleansed me too. When I washed, I felt like I belonged there. And I liked that feeling. 

As I stood there, washing side by side with Maria, I knew that I would be back. Maybe for good, or maybe just to visit. But I knew I would come back. And for the first time in my life, I thought maybe I could live somewhere else. Besides Homer. "Barbara. Manana  no hay mas ropa, pero puedes lavando los platos." 'Barbara. Tomorrow, there aren't anymore clothes to wash, but you can wash dishes.' I guess they figured out I could work, after all.