Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

| by archiveworldraceblogs

  I have found a new love during these last two months and I think it stems from my families farming roots, so here it is, I love gardening!

A lot of people here in Romania and back in Ukraine grow all of their own fruits and vegetables and have massive amazing gardens, full of all sorts of things. And it happens all the time that when we go to help a family at their homes that they think we American girls are way too fragile, which we probably are compared to so many other women in the world, so they just have us sit in gardens pulling weeds and picking vegetables.

Another thing that I have fallen in love with that I totally took granted of before the World Race is carpet. Wow, I had no idea how amazing carpet was and how much I missed it until they installed some in our room the other day.

After they finished I walked into the room and smelled something extremely familiar and wonderful, it was carpet. During our free time now I don’t leave our room that often I just love to sit on our floor and enjoy the soft, cushy carpet. I’ve even started taking an afternoon nap sprawled out across the carpet just so I could feel the softness on my face.

There are so many little things like this that we have in America and they can be extremely hard to find in other parts of the world. Some other things that I have taken advantage of in America are kitchens, they don’t really exist in many of the places I have been too, well not the kind of kitchens we are used to in America, most people just have a fire pit outside to cook and a bucket for doing dishes. In America many of us have luxurious kitchens with lots of counter space, cabinets, a double sink, stove, oven, dishwasher, refrigerators, and microwaves.

A living/family room, I haven’t seen one of these since I left America. Many homes that I have been to there have only been one or two rooms filled with all of their stuff, sleeping areas, and if they have money a small television in the corner. When I think of my parent’s home back in America I think of their beautiful, cozy living room with air-conditioning, central heating, comfy furniture, and a big TV.

A single bedroom, there are so many people in the world that don’t even have beds, let alone their own space. A lot of families share one room and sleep close together on the hard floors on straw mats. Back at home I have my own bedroom with a full size bed, with big fluffy blankets, lots of pillows, and of course my floors are covered with soft carpet.

A bathroom; one room with running water, a sink, shower, tub, and toilet. A shower is something I have rarely seen, even when I have stayed at places with running water I often have to use a bucket to bathe and a lot of times if you want hot water you have to boil it yourself. Going to the bathroom usually requires going to an outhouse or when I was in India just going out to the side of the road.

WATER! I have stayed in several places where the water is very limited and if it’s been a long time since it has rain it’s probably going to be a while before you can shower or do laundry. In Nepal there was one water spout in our entire village and it only came on around 5pm and that was the only time we were able to clean up and we had to be quick so other people could collect water for laundry and dishes. In India we had very dirty, green water that we had to use for our bucket showers, laundry, and dishes, it was so bad that all of us got sick with parasites during the month.

Electricity. My first few months in Asia we would only have power for a couple of hours in the evening via a generator, and in Africa power outages are frequent.

This list could go on and on, as I am sitting here writing this blog I am thinking of all the things that I have gone without this year and it is really crazy I can hardly wrap my mind around it. I think that it is going to be extremely difficult going back to America and all of a sudden life is easy again.