So…for the past three months I have been in eastern Africa. It was an experience I will never forget. Ever. Honestly, I cannot believe it is already over and I am heading into month 10 of this marathon called the World Race. What happened?
Anyways, one of the things of just get used to on the race is that your life is so totally unpredictable and ridiculous. There are always changes, always things you just didn't expect, and always the adventure of completely new experiences. I love it…and I hate it. It energizes me…but it wears on me.
Today, things reached a new level of ridiculousness.
Yesterday, I was in Tanzania. A place where a whistling Shepard herding his flock of goats along a trail will interrupt your quiet times in the morning, where eating fried chicken means a chicken had to die 3 hours before, where children come barreling at you with joyful smiles yelling "Mzungu! Mzungu!", where absolutely EVERYONE stops and notices you when you walk around the city. It was a lifestyle that was unlike anything I've ever experienced before, and it started to become normal. Now…it's in the books.
Today, we caught a flight at 3:45am to Istanbul, Turkey. We have a pretty long layover, so naturally I went immediately to Burger King and then to Starbucks. America. As I was viciously attacking my whopper I stopped and just let the gravity of he situations absorb me. Then I realized…where am I? All of these people are white. What is this cool air coming from the walls? How do you order coffee from Starbucks? Like…what do I say? Whoa…this is not an airport…it's a mansion.
Seriously…my allergies are acting up because I'm not used to inhaling the massive cloud of perfume that envelopes this place. It's ridiculous. What's more ridiculous is that my friend Graham and I somehow waltzed our way into the Gold Lounge at the airport. (if you look confident…no one asks questions.) So, I'm sitting here on a leather couch in this massive hall of luxury with state of the art plasma screens lining the walls, a billiard in the library/lobby out front, and the most luxurious bathrooms I have ever seen in my life, surrounded by people on laptops and cell phones drinking in the free drinks and free wifi thinking… WHAT HAPPENED?!?
This is culture shock. I get it now. And I love it because it is absolutely ridiculous. I'm not saying that either lifestyle is good or bad, but I am saying that the large scale differences between the two are so interesting to experience within a 24 hour period. Mind blowing. I am so thankful for the life I am living right now because I get to experience the world in its extremes. I get to see more of the heartbeat of this world outside of what I always knew and it is blowing me away. I can't believe I'm in Istanbul! I can't believe I've been to Africa! I can't believe I've been to Asia! I NEVER thought or desired life to bring me to these places. But it did. HE did. And as I start to see what this world is made of, I start to see the desperate need of what HE has already done for the world he loves deeply. It's so cool!
