O yes, Race Day.
If I could pick one word to describe how I felt on race day, the one word I would choose besides sticky would be illiterate.
At the beginning of the day we were given a list of instructions. We were told that we could complete the instructions in any order, and the team who completes ever thing and finishes first wins.
This sounded easy enough, but it wasn’t. All of our instructions were in English, but the signs to the places we wanted to go were in Thai. The map we bought was in Thai. The people on the street only spoke Thai. Here is an example of on objective that we had to complete.
Go to a market and buy these four random fruits that have unusual names like Durian Meat mangoousine (I made that name up, but the real name is equally as unusual.) We of course don’t know what these fruits look like. We also don’t know the Thai names for the fruit. After realizing that wecan’t even ask for the fruit in the right language, we do some quick thinking. We spot a manthat looked business like. We assumes correctlythat he might understand some English. We asked him about the fruit. He didn’t know, but he was able to write the Thai names of the fruit down. We then took the written names of the fruit to the market where we handed the list to a lady who then sent her friend to go find the fruit for us.
I felt as uniformed as a kindergartner most of the day. However, the good thing about not being able to read is that you have to ask people where places are. It is amazing how nice people (especially Thai people) can be. When you don’t have the skills to complete something on your own, you have to depend on others to help you. I hate that this is true because I like being competent.
Race day revolved that I like being self sufficient, but the truth is that having to depend on others isn’t always that bad. In fact sometimes it’s good.
After running around Bangkok for six hours, we came in second to team Concrete. Team Concrete won $50 for themselves, and $50 to give away to another teams ministry fund. They choose to give us the $50. We have decided to use that money for our Bar ministry. Thank youConcrete!
