Originally I did my “Only You, Shannon – Bolivia Edition” thinking it would be a one time thing, because really, no one could possibly have semi-embarrassing things happen to them that often, right? Well, apparently I was wrong. So due to the sheer amounts of semi-embarrassing/just strange things that happen to me and due to how many people have requested that this be a monthly thing – I give you “Only you, Shannon” – Peru edition! It may be half a month late, but better late than never, right?!
If you missed the first blog like this basically I do really weird things, or have really weird things happen to me and people usually comment something like “this would only happen to you, Shannon.” So I have compiled some of those moments here:
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So our bus ride from La Paz, Bolivia to Lima, Peru was approximately 28 hours long. At some point during the day we stopped for lunch at some middle of no where place where they only have 3 choices to choose from. We didn’t know what the meals were, but simply pointed to which one we wanted. My teammate Rocky and I got the “most normal” looking one. It was good but the meat was a little too chewy. We assumed it was cow fat so we stopped eating it after a few bites. Turns out I was eating cow intestine… and when did I find this out? Over two DAYS later. Whoops.
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Month two was all-squad month. All 45 of us lived in a compound and it was a party. We had a bathroom for the guys and a bathroom for the girls, however the only shower was in the girls bathroom. Annnnd this is where my embarrassing stories happened. It took us a while to master this technique: if the chair is in front of the girls bathroom, that means a guy is in the shower and we temporarily switch bathrooms. So the first time we ever switched bathrooms when a guy was in the shower I noticed that while the girls had boring trashcans in the stalls the boys had fun trashcans. One was a pig and I excitedly commented on this when I came out of the bathroom to a friend, Justin. He just laughed at how excited I was about this and said “yeah and the other one is Flounder.” I got really excited, ran back in the bathroom, ripped open the shower curtain we used as door (keep in mind, this is all in order to see a trashcan) only to realize someone was in there. She screamed, I screamed, I ran out yelling “I just wanted to see Flounder!” and Justin wouldn’t stop laughing at me. Awkward.
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At training camp I was briefly known as the girl who had a frog jump out of her backpack. It has been in there for over 24 hours and it was really funny. In Peru I had a lizard jump out of my backpack, more specifically out of a zip lock bag that I hadn’t opened since Bolivia, more than two weeks beforehand. So that’s cute and fun.
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This is another story about switching bathrooms, of course. There was a guy in the shower, so I had told some girls I was going to the bathroom. We joked about how awkward it would be if a guy walked in and then off I went. As I flushed the toilet I heard someone humming as they came into the bathroom and it was most definitely a guy. I didn’t want to walk out, so I stayed in the stall, holding the shower curtain closed and trying not to laugh at the fact that this would happen to me. After a minute I heard silence, but waited a good two minutes before I peeked around the curtain and BOLTED out of the bathroom. I immediately went to stand in the line for lunch and told the girls about what had happened. As we stood there the guy in front of me started humming the same song I heard in the bathroom, so I started laughing thinking it was him.
Later that night, Chris and Chrislyn, one of the married couples on our squad asked me if I had any new “only you, Shannon” stories. So I told them this story. As I finished the story Chris was laughing and said “That was me! I didn’t know which bathroom I was supposed to go in so I went in that bathroom and decided to hum so people would know it was a guy!” As we finished laughing about it I told them I was going to go to the bathroom. A guy, once again, was in the shower so as I walked to the guys bathroom Chris jokingly told me he would be in there in a minute. While I was in the bathroom I heard the shower curtain door open and then I heard Chris yelling to one of the guys “No! No, don’t go in that bathroom, it’s the girls!” Yep, it happened twice and everyone witnessed the second one. Hilarious.
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The kitchen area was right next to the chapel, where we had church services. It was about an hour before the church service started, so I wasn’t really thinking people would be in there. The kitchen team had music playing so I walked up to Esther and started dancing with her. Apparently I did a little booty shake only to realize that my back was facing the open chapel door, I turned around slightly horrified to see that church members were in fact inside and they were all laughing at me. Oh, Shannon, why must you do such things?
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So when we went to do ministry outside of the prison we finished by praying for people who wanted prayer. The pastor had anyone who wanted prayer raise their hand and then we would go pray with them. I was wrapping up a conversation with a lady that I had JUST finished praying for when all of a sudden she put her hand up, grinning. Obviously I high fived it, thinking that was what she wanted. She gave me a strange look, then bust out into a laugh and told me she wanted more prayer, from someone else. I had just finished praying for her, so I awkwardly laughed and then quickly said bye and ran away.
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On one of our off days I went to lunch and sat with Rachel and Ash, two girls from team Sozo who are absolutely hilarious. We all just decided to order randomly and see what came out. I was given the wrong plate at one point and then it was randomly taken away and I got potatoes with cold nacho cheese and just all around weird food. It was great. But at one point this boy came over, grabbed my half full Coca Cola and began banging it against an empty glass. Then continued to do so, it almost seemed like he was asking to have some. He also kept holding out his hand as if asking for money. We just stared at him, Ash bust out laughing so hard she shot rice out of her nose, I grabbed my coke from the boy and he grunted and ran away. ….okay. That’s cool.
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This one time we were walking home from street ministry and it had gone longer than expected and the sun was quickly setting. We weren’t prepared for that and were all getting really cold. I also had to go to the bathroom, so that was great. As we were walking my friend Jordan (who is on team Lutroo, we often joke about her having the same embarrassing things happen to her) was making me laugh. I told her to stop making me laugh or I would pee. All of a sudden I started to sneeze and I immediately knew it wouldn’t end well. I sneezed four times. Coincidentally I also peed a little four different times. Awkward. I didn’t tell Jordan this happened until almost a week later. She replied “Why didn’t you tell me?! We could have laughed so hard about it all the way home!” Oh, my life.
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After a day at the beach some of us were about to catch a taxi home, but decided to stop at a bakery first. I was with Derek and Sara (Team Sozo) and Jake and Zach (Team TONKA). While Jake was getting ice cream I saw these delicious looking chocolate chip muffins and I decided I wanted one. They were at the other end of the counter though and I don’t know the Spanish word for muffin so Derek told me “Just say hola and then point to them.” So once Jake finished getting ice cream I walked up to the counter said “Hola” to the lady and while I pointed this random and super awkward “hmmmmmm” came out of my mouth.. and everyone bust into laughter. They didn’t stop laughing until I had gotten my muffin, walked outside, gotten a taxi and driven away. They also really enjoyed telling this story or just making the noise around me because it was embarrassing.
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This one testifies to how awesome my Spanish skills are. We were inside the woman’s prison praying for people and this one lady, Maria, came up to me and began telling me what she wanted prayer for. She kept touching her side and I literally thought she was telling me she had an orange in her pocket. While I was trying to figure out why she wanted prayer for that she said something that made me realize how wrong I was. She was really telling me she had a tumor in her side that was causing her pain. I wish my Spanish skills were spot on the first time though, because I would rather be praying for a lady with an orange in her pocket then a lady who was in horrible pain from a tumor. An orange would be easier to deal with.
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This story also has to do with street ministry. We were once again walking home and once again, it had gone longer than expected. I was walking with two friends, we were all being really silly and one of the friends decided to use my phone to video himself and us while we walked. All of a sudden he pretended to use my friends hair as his hair and then because she couldn’t see, she slammed into me. We both started laughing so hard and she looked at me and said “Stop! We can’t laugh, I will pee!” That of course made us both laugh more and suddenly we had both peed our pants. Best part? Our sweet friend videoing got it all on tape and still didn’t know what was happening. Moral of the story: street ministry always goes longer than expected, make sure you go to the bathroom beforehand and don’t ever laugh.. ever.
So these are my “only you, Shannon” moments from Peru. They were pretty funny and awkward, but I love it. I am still uncertain as to whether this will be a monthly thing or not, we shall see! I hope you enjoyed them though! 🙂
