Hand washing clothes

I am very fortunate to live in a house that has a washing machine.  Now while the machine is modern looking, it is very slow.  We only have cold water here and I have to hook up several hoses to make it work.  One load takes about an hour or so, so washing can take awhile.  Because of this, we all have a specific day on which to wash.  My day is Thursday.  I just go down my method of hanging the wash to dry properly (hey it's not as easy as it looks!)  Unfortunately, I found that some time the washer doesn't always do it's job properly.  I was told to buy some blue soap and that would do the trick.  I was quite proud of myself when I was able to walk to the pulperia (corner store) and properly request it.  I got back to the house and asked how much of the blue hunk I had to chop up and put into the washing machine.  They smiled knowingly and walked me over to a tub where they hand wash clothes.  I was DEVASTATED.  It took me a whole week to finally suck it up and go over to hand wash everything.  One older lady had offered to do it but I said no since I wanted to prove I could do it.  After 3 people showed me how (everyone swore they had the technique) I waited until night fall so they wouldn't laugh too much.  Below are pictures of the tub with the water bowl on the left. 

Sink where I hand wash clothes

Ready to hand wash with my blue soap

Now mind you I'm trying to wash under the cover of nightfall but of course someone saw me and decided to have some fun.  I was standing there doing a little dance to make sure nothing scurried across my feet in the darkness.  You see, the previous night, I awoke the sound of two mice having a terrible fight in my room--running and knocking things over.  I refused to get out of bed before the sun rose to make sure  didn't walk into their scuffle.  This on top of walking into my room a few weeks ago and there was a tarantula there to greet me.  So, yes, I am just a bit paranoid at night.  So I'm doing my little dance and I start to feel something hit my shoulders and back.   Every time I feel it, I jump and shake a little subsequently splashing water on myself.  This happens over and over as I still do the dance to make sure no spiders are falling from the trees and no mice are on my feet.  Finally, I realize there are people behind the wall throwing paper balls.  They jump out with a camera yelling "Tarantula! Tarantula!" Soooo not cool!