16 October2007, Monday
Pago Pago, AS
The Laundromat is near the dinghy dock at the Seaside Gas Station, Bakery and the Red Tool Shop. Everything is there in this Laundromat; the machines, the soap, the bleach, even the Ramen, candy bars, chips and sodas. It is a 24/6 hours operation. And it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg ($1/wash, $1 dry).
But the fun part was not the actual act of doing our five loads of laundry, but learning the cultural nuances of jostling for machines. Of course, I arrived on the busiest day of the week and every machine was taken. In the corner, all the supplies are sold and the change is made, the woman orchestrating the place was friendly, but she wasn’t incline to advise me on whether I should retreat or stay. So, I stayed, took a seat and watched. It didn’t take me long to realize that these women knew their routine. They were shuffling loads, in/out, and washing, drying, and folding. These are big women with LOTs of laundry. Machines turned over quickly and obviously, there was a pecking order for the machines. Few words were spoken; a few gestures and quickly one load left and another arrived. I thought that with five years of cruising, I knew my laundry etiquettes, but this was beyond my skills. I felt no rudeness; it was efficiency that drove the process. And I was the new kid in the shop. Finally, they must have taken pity on me and I was tapped on the shoulder and three washing machines were made available. That was a quick detail. It was the next step, drying that would take four hours. I watched as 8-year-old boys and girls helped their mothers fold the clothes. I watched as fathers came in trucks and SUV’s to pick up the tons of folded laundry. I watched as all the laundry was wrapped in plastic bags to protect it from the rainfall. I watched as Ramen was consumed, box after box. I watched as the place was swept and the manager roamed the area. In the end, I waited an hour before the Laundromat’s manager nabbed a dryer for me so that I could pull out of the cue and into the flow. With a whistle, she hailed me to get with the program. Had I joined the team? Then, another Samoan woman made sure I had one more dryer. That was it. Two dryers were my allocation. And if I let the machine stop or move into the cool cycle, the “hawk like behaviors” set in, with a cough or a grunt gently nudging me to pull my nose out of the New Yorker Magazine and pay attention to my “job”. No one was reading while they waited. Sometimes I heard laughter and bantering of Samoan chatter, but not much. Occasionally, a younger woman played a game on her cell phone, but most of the women, just waited while the rain fell and watched the countdown. Ah, the home convenience of your own washer and dry just doesn’t compare to the tales of a Laundromat in American Samoa.