Vartanoush Arutyunyan, now seventy, had grown up with difficult chores in her time. She lived in Iran until the year sixty-seven then moved to Armenia, now she lives in America watching people easily throw their clothes in the laundry machine and still complain about how it waists their time, but they don't think about what others would go through, with all that pain, time, and effort, like my grandmother. She finished school in the third grade to help around the house doing chores instead of playing and doing what she really wanted to do. As she got older and older things appeared to get easier when laundry machines began to sell. Vartanoush started raising her own family, telling her children about how much she would suffer in her childhood starting at the age of fourteen, but now all she wants is the best for her kids and grandkids.
I grew up with four brothers and three sisters. I went to an Armenian Sisters
Catholic School until the third grade and dropped out to start hand washing
clothes. I then worked with machines making yarn for clothes. However, during
this time I started hand washing clothes. It all began walking to get water.
Half an hour away from us there was a big well; from the well we would pour
water from the bucket with a rope tied to it, fill it up, then bring it home. I
would walk by myself without my sisters since they were busy doing other house
chores, and I would wash the clothes without help, everyone else would just help
themselves. In addition, if the water would spill from my bucket on the way
home, I didn't have any other choice I would have to walk back, the walk there
and back took more than half an hour. Now, girls don't do chores like the ones I
would do.Before, I would wash clothes for my family and in a big bowl with a lighter under to warm up the water. Without a brake, I would wash our clothes then dry them in my backyard. I'd drain out the water, lay the clothes on our long ropes and leave it under the sun to dry. After it would dry, I would bring the clothes inside iron them. Inside the iron we would put coal to warm it up, we would iron the clothes and bring it home, and next week it was the same story. Our neighbors would do the same thing; everyone would wash their clothes by hand hanging them to dry. In the winter, we would take the clothes inside where there was no rain, no snow, and wash it the same way. Inside, I would lay the clothes on the chairs here and there. If it were raining I would still have to walk to the well and get the water. I would use my hands as a tool rubbing the clothes so that all the stains would go away. I would use so much soap; my parents would get mad, angry, and hit me because if we ran out we had to go buy more. After using soap I'd wash it out two or three more times.
We would have younger kids, they would poop in their pants and there was no pampers back then, instead we would put a piece of cloth, when it got dirty we washed it, put soap, put it under the sun so that the stains would clean off. We didn't have any other choice it was our children and we had to clean it. If their were disgusting stains we would put more soap on it then rub it and rub it so the dirt would clean off. I would usually be washing my dad's mechanic work clothes which were oily.
I had many difficult days washing clothes, but if I were to pick a time where it was the worst it would be winter, because I had to walk to the well. Hand washing was very bad mostly because of what would happen to our hands. We would get blisters, we would get hurt so many times, our hands would get sick but again we didn't have a choice.
If I was ever sick, someone would come and do the laundry for us but if we just had a little cold or flew that didn't matter we still had to work. However, there were many days when I just couldn't do it, I would talk to my dad about it and he would understand sometimes.
I became twenty seven when I got my first laundry machine in Armenia. It still wasn't the same as it is here though; over there it was harder, we still had to drain the water out, walk to get water, and leave the clothes outside to dry, also, in the winter the laundry machines would freeze so we'd have to leave it outside to melt.
In my opinion it's better now, now it is more easier, especially to the kids because it doesn't distract them from school and homework, but now has its own difficulties. School and life here is more stressful and harder. Even though it may be easier now, you still have to collect quarters to put in the laundry machine and if I don't have enough then I have to borrow it from the neighbors. Back then not all kids would hand wash at age fourteen or fifteen like me, some would just sit at home and relax, but we, we had to do it. Now, I just go clean my clothes and do the laundry, dry it, fold it, bring it home, and then iron it. I do my laundry twice a week, but when I would wash the clothes by hand I would do it once a week or once in ten days. The laundry machine now takes half an hour to wash and an hour to dry and is very convenient now.