Watching Samoan women wash clothes by beating them with a stick or rocks gave me the idea of how a washboard would make life a little easier and clothes a little cleaner. Alas I found the Columbus Washboard Company on the web and called. To my amazement and the woman owner who answered the phone on this Christmas Eve Day, we had something in common. She and her husband spend five years in Tonga in the 1970's as New Zealand citizens helping to build the airport in Tonga and knew Samoa well. In fact Peace Corps Volunteers whom she met were instrumental in getting her into the United States where she bought the equipment of a defunct company to revive washboard manufacturing in the U.S. She shipped me a couple of washboards, which I plan to take back to Samoa, see if women use them, and approach the New Zealand Consulate about funding another one of my crazy projects.
One never knows where the Peace Corps, Samoa, or the Internet can take you.
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