Little Differences - Laundry

I finally did laundry on Sunday for the first time and today it was finally dry. The washer here is super small - it holds about half an American load and, yet, takes over an hour for one cycle! The cylinder is vertical and has doors that latch to take clothes in and out. The detergent comes in plastic pouches - you put the whole thing in with the wash and the plastic somehow dissolves away. I don't know - it all sounds a little sketchy to me. They don't have dryers here. If you look at the apartment buildings around there's laundry hanging from windows and balconies on every floor all the time. So it takes awhile to actually get laundry back - thank goodness you can't wash it all at once anyway. The school says our housing contract only allows one load of laundry a week. Given the small size of the washer, I don't see how this is possibly enough to do clothes and linens. Fortunately, Mme said we could do two loads so we can separate whites and colors, but it takes so long... I had to laugh when she showed me the button to push if you only had half a load. That would be like just sticking your jeans in there for an hour+ cycle. Why bother?