But seriously sometimes I just can’t even deal. There is a certain expectation amongst us racers that although we shouldn’t have any expectations, we can expect that the race will be awesome. I am here to set the record straight, it’s not always awesome, amazing, bucket list worthy days out here. We’re not always healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked. We’re not always going to the wonders of the world, bun jee jumping and swimming with sharks. Sometimes we are just cleaning bathrooms and making a path out of rocks while bugs eat the crap out of us.
The Race is not what every missionary dreams of when they choose to leave home for a year. It took me a really long time to write this because I was feeling the pressure to put a positive spin on my experience over the last month. But then I was talking to my teammate, Rachel about it and we were asking each other why no one ever writes about this side of the Race . Is it because no one wants to write about it or is it because we are scared that it’s not what people reading will want to hear? We agreed that it was the second and that inspired me to go for it. Who am I pretending to be anyway? This is not me. I don’t sugar coat things in real life, so why would I in my Race life?
Last month in Bolivia was just so-so for me. Our ministry was taking hundreds of rocks from the river and passing them in long assembly lines up and over the river wall and to the pathway that we would be making. We camped in our tents on a basketball court and cooked meals everyday for 40 people on 4 propane burners using the very limited ingredients of rice, beans, avocado, eggs and oatmeal. We drank chloronated water that gave us bubble guts and fought off demon bugs that didn’t listen to 100% deet. We also cleaned bathrooms and a pool with no supplies. My team fought, worked it out and then fought some more. I lost my debit card in the ATM cookie monster at the beginning of the month so I had to mooch money off of friends in order to buy comfort food when we went to town on the weekends. I also got sick and spent three days alone in my tent just wanting my mommy.
I know this sounds like a lot of complaining and I also know that I could put a positive spin on it all because it wasn’t an absolutely terrible month; there were beautiful moments of joy and laughter. Like playing “would you rather” or belting out country music and laughing about our bug suits. But I’m not writing about all that right now because I just gotta be real. I know that it wasn’t all terrible, although there were moments when I thought, “what am I doing here?” I am not clear on the purpose of my being secluded from Bolivian society for a month, but I am sure that months down the road I will look back on it with fond memories of time spent with my best friends and lessons learned from God and Hermano Lucho.
Now it’s time to figure out what the heck I’m doing here in Peru… more on that soon.
As Tim Gunn always says, “Make it work.”
