Team hammock time! Our classy squatty potties One of the most fun, crazy, strengthening-of-faith days at launch was Adventure Day on Friday the 7th. They did not kid when they said adventure. It was supposed to be us as teams just getting out into the culture and enjoying the day but it turned out to be much more complicated. The first hurdle we had to overcome was crossing the main road to get to the atm to withdraw money for the day. That’s not a big deal in the U.S. but here it involves playing a very dangerous cat and mouse game with oncoming traffic. Picture a 4 lane road in the middle of a shopping district with a small concrete median. Now add about 10 traffic lanes’ worth of midday traffic that is completely ignoring any form of order. Also, there are no crosswalks. You just take a deep breath, hold out your hand towards oncoming traffic and walk. It’s actually quite a rush, that and riding on the roads. I loved it! You literally come within inches of other vehicles, oncoming traffic & pedestrians. You may think I’m exaggerating but I’m not. The video I’m going to be posting doesn’t come close to the actual experience. Now picture hundreds of those little yellow taxis You take internet where you find it Ok, on to the story again… We had been informed the day before that if you asked a taxi (3 wheeled scooter) driver if he knew how to get somewhere, he would just say yes regardless if he actually did know or not. That was exactly the case. We had been given the option of going to 2 different markets and we picked the fun sounding Pearl Market. We drove for about half an hour and ended up at the taxi driver’s friend’s pearl store. Not quite what we had in mind so we got a map from a nice looking hotel and gave it to the next taxi driver. We finally ended up at a place that was more like the Plastic Bead Group of Stalls, not Pearl Market. We walked around for a while, ate a sketchy lunch and decided to head on back to the convent so as not to miss our deadline. The next taxi drivers were a bad choice. Our team got split up and all Steve, Andrea and I had to go on was the address we had memorized because the other taxi (Charlotte, Amiee & Juddson) had the map and the paper with the address. The address we had was supposed to be for a Reebok store just down the street from the convent. Not so. It was a Reebok store but it was definitely not near the convent. After we realized this, there was a succession of taxi drivers, circles driven, finding and losing another team, moments of desperation & utter hilarity. With one short-lived driver there was even a fight between him and some guys on a motorcycle. It ended with our driver getting punched in the head as he was driving us. Yup. Just another day in the life. I’ve used the phrase before that the World Race is something that puts you in situations where all you have left to rely on is faith. I didn’t expect that to be lived out so soon, but there you go. Welcome to my World Race.
We finally circled around to the Reebok store one last time with the idea to just sit outside and pray, hoping another team would come by. There was nothing else we could do. We were obviously in the wrong place, had no idea of the address or even a name of where we were staying, no phone, no phone number, no ideas. Lost in Hyderabad. Just as Andrea and I sat down to have a serious prayer meeting, Steve yelled that someone in the Reebok store had some directions for us. A lady came out and wrote down the name of another area Reebok store. Apparently another team had come by wirh the correct address and told her to pass it along to any other confused white people wondering around her store. We got a new cab and our prayers were answered as we started recognizing things as he drove. We were an hour and a half late getting back to the convent but we’d made it! There was much rejoicing. J
Hello Hyderabad!
T Squad landed early in the morning in Hyderabad, India. Launch week (actually just 3 days) was a bit blurry due to jet-lag but we had some great meetings and fun getting used to India. We stayed in a convent/retreat center not far from the center of Hyderabad and quickly got used to squatty potties and bucket showers. I never thought that would be a normality for me. Just another one of those “Is this really me?� moments which I’m sure will become very common on the Race.
Sketchy lunch Sketchy market
