Getting injured is never fun. It can make even the simplest things a little more difficult. But add the fact that you’re in Central America with no comforts of home and it can make for some pretty interesting stories.
Here are the top 11 reasons you know you’re injured while on the World Race in a foreign country:
- There’s no readily available ice. So maybe you’ll be lucky and have a small chunk the first night, or maybe they’ll give you a warm bucket of mango extract instead.
- When you go to the free clinic and see a stray dog walking the halls. Then later see said dog digging through the trash can outside the clinic.
- When your free ambulance ride to the hospital, which is really only a land cruiser with the seats taken out of the back, is shared with other patients with similar or not similar injuries going to the same hospital.
- When your free x-ray includes a free dose of radiation. Because protective vests are only reserved for the doctor that is taking the x-ray in the nearby closet. (But luckily the warning label on the machine read in English: “Be Careful Head.”)
- Since knee braces are hard to come by in Nicaragua, you’re given a full leg cast instead, NBD. Good thing blue semi-permanent leggings on one leg are totally in style right now.
- When your forms of getting around go from Moses’ staph which was found in the woods, to a walker that is not needed by a grandmother anymore, to a pair of crutches made for Goliath.
- When the perfect handicap bathroom is not a spacious bathroom with handles but rather a bathroom with a hole in the door for your injured foot.
- When your shower consists of Febreeze on your bed and yourself and a new headband to cover your hair, and/or a big trash bag and duct tape the few times you’re able to go near water.
- When your daily entertainment is birds making nests above your heads, geckos hanging out on the lights, and a herd of cows passing by at 3:15.
- When it starts to feel as if your life is out of a war movie. Where else do you get to share a twin size bed with another gimp under a tin roof surrounded by 50+ tents?
- When your only form of the outdoors is a warm breeze created by a small fan blowing 90º air back at you and the sun streaming directly on you through an opening in the tin roof between 3:45-4:15.
Special thanks to the ladies of the church and our entire squad for being so caring and loving the past three weeks. We make the best out of our situation despite our injuries, and really are doing okay. Thankfully we have each other, so we don’t get as bored throughout the days and weeks. Stay tuned for part 2 and 3!
Gimpy buddies for life!
