Here is the sequel to Episode 1:
One day in Nicaragua, the water ran out at the place we were staying. Along with no toilet flushing, this also meant no showering. So several of us went to a local village to bathe at someone’s house. I took a refreshing bucket shower in someone’s backyard that would have been entirely perfect if I weren’t about a foot taller than the average Nicaraguan. The tarp that surrounded the concrete slab where the buckets were didn’t quite come up to my shoulders. And all the neighbors at the house next-door had chosen that time to sit in their backyard. So I took my entire shower squatting and trying to be as short as possible to avoid a serious breach of modesty. After my shower I sat with Lindsay and Bethany at the neighbor’s house with our hair in towels watching chickens roam around our feet as we waited to be picked up. The lengths you’ll go through to get clean on the World Race…My life is weird.
One night in Nicaragua we were having team time as usual, and out of nowhere Katie started screaming. A bug had flown into her ear and wouldn’t come out. I looked in her ear, but couldn’t find the bug, so we got Q-Tips, a flashlight, and some tweezers, but all to no avail. At this point she was getting worried so I went and got our contact and told him that we might need a doctor. Meanwhile, Rosa realized that we could flush the bug out with alcohol. Several of my teammates held Katie’s head sideways as Rosa poured rubbing alcohol into her ear, and out swam the desperate bug. Nightmare averted. My life is weird.
One day in El Salvador we went to the food court at a local mall to eat lunch. The entire population of San Salvador was there to watch the Barcelona/Madrid game, but that’s normal. I went to a grill to help Brent order in Spanish, and the cashier got really excited and started pointing behind us. “Sobrevivir? Sobrevivir?,” he asked. To survive…I thought…what? “Tu amigo, fue en el programa Sobrevivir?!” Oh, I realized, he thinks that our teammate Joel was on Survivor! (Side note: Joel’s beard is currently divided into two little pigtails with braided thread and beads hanging from them…and he was wearing an REI head-buff at the time) I explained to a very disappointed food court worker that his almost brush with stardom was not to be…we’re just missionaries, not reality TV stars. My life is weird.
One day in El Salvador our contact took us to a local kindergarten to play with the kids. We thought we would be spending the afternoon with one classroom of children, but when we got there the principal put us in charge of entertaining all of the kids instead…there were a couple hundred of them. While we were huddling trying to think of a quick plan to keep two hundred five year olds who only speak Spanish from going crazy, one of the little boys ran up to me and tapped my arm. He said to me, “My friend wants to know…are you a gringo?” “Si,” I told him. And he ran back to a giggling group of his little amigos who were all pointing and staring at me. My life is weird.
One day in Nicaragua I was in the middle of the most splendid nap in World Race history. And that may not actually be an exaggeration. We were visiting another team for the day at their ministry site, and the girls’ room had air conditioning. In case you don’t comprehend the full gravity of the situation, that means that in the midst of the blistering 100 degree Nicaraguan heat, this room had vents that blow cold air on you. For those of you currently enjoying this blog from your climate controlled offices and/or living rooms in the States, allow me to remind you that air conditioning is unheard-of on the World Race. Thus, I was sleeping blissfully…until my loving teammates decided to ruin everything. If you know me, you know that I’m not exactly a crowd person, and I am also not known for my love of furry creatures. So being woken up by at least twenty people crowded into a small room would be bad enough. But no…it gets worse…my teammate Joel was standing right by the bed where I was sleeping holding a squirrel. I was trapped on a rickety top bunk surrounded by a group of laughing people and a potentially rabid beast. Ok, it turned out that the squirrel was a pet, did not have rabies, and would not have bitten me, but I didn’t know any of that at the time. Worst ending to the best nap ever. My life is weird.
One night in El Salvador we were having team time as usual. On Team Wreckonciled, we each take a different night of the week to lead team time. My night is Saturday. For the past two weeks, our Saturday team times have been interrupted in very odd ways. Last Saturday night I decided that we needed some fresh air, so we had team time in the park/town square. In the middle of me trying to explain something to my team, a parade broke out a few feet from us, complete with deafening fireworks, courtesy of the local Catholic church. (Side note: this is apparently a very festive church, or possibly this week is an especially important one on the religious calendar, because these fireworks have continued on a daily basis for the past eight nights) This Saturday night we stayed in the house for team time…no distractions here, right? Wrong. As I was again trying to explain the evening’s activity to my team, a commotion broke out on the roof, and our contact shouted some orders in Spanish. Within seconds his son ran in with a flashlight, his wife with a footstool, his mother-in-law with a bucket, and his nine-year-old daughter with a shotgun. If I didn’t speak Spanish I might have assumed we were being robbed or at least attacked by a large animal, but it turned out to be nothing more than some sort of indigenous rodent that apparently kills the village hens by biting their necks. Charming. At least that explains the scurrying noises we hear above our beds every night. My life is weird.
Stay tuned for Episode 3 as more strange things happen to my team and me.
