So much ridikulusness: Thailand edition - Explore Archived World Race Alumni Blogs

Thailand was an unexpectedly incredible month for me. A month full of new freedoms, new joy, new relationships, new passions, new confidence in Christ, and new growth. What started as bitterness turned to complete and utter joy. What started in bondage turned to the road to freedom. What started as going through the motions turned into whole hearted investment. Things only God is capable of doing to a person’s heart. And I couldn’t have chosen a better group of people to walk through it with.

So without further adieu… here they are, a few of those hysterical moments this awesome month held for us. A few of those stories that will stick with me for a lifetime. Hope ya’ll enjoy!

So we’re playing volleyball for gym class with a bunch of Thai students one morning. Well let’s just say volleyball isn’t Drop the Mic’s strong suite. The Thai students have the ball and are about ready to serve as Sydney is on our side not really paying attention, but explaining to us how she’s not a selfish player and that’s why when it comes between her and someone else she doesn’t wanna take the ball from them… (Just as Sydney is abruptly cut off in mid sentence by the ball flying her way and in response screams, at the top of her lungs, “MINEEEE” and everyone quickly jumps out of her way) Yeah, and what was that you were saying about not being a selfish player and stuff like that? Haha. That’s what I like to hear Sydney!
Sometimes for your last minute gym class you’re asked to play in a pickup basketball game against the Thai students. Even though you’re dressed in jeans and flip flops, you obviously can’t say no to such an offer. So Kaitlin and I decide playing barefoot is our best option. By the end of the game my pinky toe was nearly broken, I have a plethora of blisters on each foot, Kaitlin has a severely jammed finger, a similar plethora of blisters on each foot, and Ronny has a pulled hip. As a result, Kaitlin and I end up icing my toe and her jammed finger at the same time with the same bag of ice, and we all eventually limp ourselves back to the car to go home.
This month we’ve done a variety of different sports. Sometimes we show up to gym class and Mr. P has us playing volleyball or basketball which is normal, but other times he has us doin some Thai specialties like Thai-boxing, or even better… Thai sword play where you essentially learn dance moves with a sword. No matter what it is, it’s always fun, eventful, and probably super entertaining to watch us attempt.
When you’re looking around town for the local gym. You find it located in this tiny little corner store with the entire “free weights” section, if that’s what you wanna call it, strategically placed on the sidewalk/driveway. As you walk in to check prices you find this little Asian woman hooked up to one of those 80’s shaking machines. With one arm bracing her head and her other arm sassily on her hip, she looks at us and says in her high pitched Thai voice “25 baht, one day. 155 baht, whole month.” Haha it took every part of me not to bust out laughing. The entire situation was just comical.
Sometimes you get to go to a Thai festival with your host family that only happens for 3 days of the entire year. While exploring said festival you find yourself trying all sorts of interesting Thai food. Some of which includes delicious Thai chicken on a skewer, interesting cracker things, green mango things, rice things, coconut ice cream things, and of course… Huge, big eyed, long legged, water bugs!! Yes, they were crunchy. Yes, their legs got stuck in your teeth. Yes, they were super chewy. Yes, my ENTIRE team did it. And yes, I don’t think I’ll do it again!
So we have this cat that Sydney named Sunday that sounds like a crying baby when it meows. And when he sits outside the door at night and makes a ruckus the best option is to throw little pop rock fireworks near him. Works like a gem.
When your team is getting salads at the salad ladies salad bar and y’all are testing all the dressings to see which one you’d prefer to have. You finally chose which one tastes the most savory to you. The lady is currently busy making all of your juices so all 4 of you decide to just dump the dressing from the little glass bottles onto your salads. As she comes over she asks what kind of dressing each of you decided you wanted. Oops that’s when we realized the cute glass containers were for display only… The actual dressing comes in neatly sealed plastic bags. Haha we always tend to leave a lasting impression on places. Usually one of utter embarrassment.
When three girls have an entire room to themselves sleeping can sometimes get a little interesting. Kaitlin likes to crawl off her sleeping pad in her sleep and snuggle right next to me. I like to grab her face in an effort to find my seemingly lost pillow that has actually only been taken by Sydney who’s sleeping on the floor next to us (not entirely sure how it got down there). And Sydney likes to believe my flesh colored pillow is my body laying in bed. Which it’s not obvs. O and sometimes Kaitlin and I wake up at the same time in the night and, rather awkwardly, find ourselves making eye contact or holding hands. Typical night.
It’s Tommy’s team time one Friday night, and he’s got a few questions to ask us. “What’s been your favorite part of the day?” We’ve all finished and now it’s Brad’s turn… “I’m thankful for coffee this morning and…” Just as, under his breath, Tommy quietly mumbles “Shoot, that coffee tore my stomach apart… I’m thankful for working toilets.” Hahaha!! Sorry Tommy, now the World Wide Web also knows.
#worldraceprobs …Still speaking to every Asian in Spanish. Gracias. Buenas. Lo siento. I don’t know what part of the world I’m in!!
We had Thai lessons this month to learn a few phrases. One word can have 5 meanings depending on the tone that’s made. An example “maa” can mean dog, horse, hot, come, and mother depending on the tone of your voice. Half the time I couldn’t even hear a difference between the tones. And we literally sounded like a bunch of drowned rats in a choir trying to gasp for air. I desperately wish someone would’ve gotten a video of us trying so hard because it woulda been worth a million. Maybe my favorite is Sydney’s rather high pitched voice when she begins speaking Thai. Trust me, it’s entertaining to say the least.
When you’re sitting in an Asian coffee shop just minding your own business and you find yourself nonchalantly singin to “Santa Baby” that’s playing over the loud speakers. It never even phases you that it’s mid February and that shouldn’t be normal. But it is because you’re on the World Race.
Adventures of the race sometimes look like taking an hour boat ride up the river on a tiny wooden banana boat through marshes and past mountains. Once you get to your destination you have the amazing opportunity to feed, pet, AND ride elephants through the mountains and rivers of Thailand. Ok talk about the #bestdayevaaaa #selfiewithanelephant
I just want all the Thai pants of the land… But really.
When you come home from the market and team time turns into show n tell of all the cool things you bought.
“You guys… I’ve blown through SOO much cash today. I need to stop.” When actually you’ve only spent $50 and you bought 2 fabrics, a lamp, 5 pairs of Thai pants, 4 scarfs, a miniature elephant sculpture, 2 change purses, a new toiletry bag, a handmade bag, a tablecloth, an elephant ride, a boat ride, AND sushi. Yes, I said $50. Ok Thailand, I officially love you. (By the way, all of that stuff was for my family back at home not just for myself)
Sometimes 4 of 6 people on your team get food poisoning from the Happy Street street market. Us three girls watched movies in misery for 3 days straight until we could finally start eating normal food again. And I didn’t have an appetite for Thai food for basically the rest of the month. Street food… Always risky business. And “Happy Street” isn’t so happy anymore.
Gettin tatted in Thailand can be interesting. Sometimes it looks like you sitting in a shack with the tattoo artist being a gnarly long haired, hippy lookin, Thai man who really likes beer. While you’re waiting you meet 4 girls… 2 from France, 1 from Italy, and 1 from the states. And suddenly the one from the states starts drilling you with questions on your faith and what you believe (which quickly escalates into an interesting conversation). I’ve gotten tattoos in some interesting places, but this definitely hits the list of one of my favorites.
One on ones with Sharon, girls nights with Julie, morning coffee dates with Amy, Sunday afternoon Uno with the Lynn’s, and dinner at Joel and Amy’s house with delicious homemade tacos… Just a few of the incredible people we’ve been able to meet and really get to know this month. So many blessings I’m overwhelmed by all the love and community.
The solution to a clogged sink in Thailand sometimes looks like completely taking the plumbing off the wall and having the sink drain directly onto the floor. You know what they say… there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
So there’s two rooms we have rented for the month. A guys room and a girls room. They just happen to be across the hall from each other. Apparently, one night, Tommy just really had to use the restroom and couldn’t wait until their bathroom was available so instead he came over to our room and used ours. And after he left our toilet was clogged, and was clogged for 2 days after that. Thank you, Tommy… Really, thank you.
One morning Kaitlin decided she just randomly wanted to curl her hair for church. So she curls her hair with her handy curling iron she picked up from a thrift shop in Nicaragua. As she’s continuing to get ready she realizes she missed a piece so she goes back to curl that one last piece. Next thing I hear is this huge thud, and Kaitlin casually stating “ummm ok, I just burnt a chunk of my hair off. The curling iron is on fire!!” Soon after, I smell this horrid burnt hair smell that continues to linger for the rest of the day. And Kaitlin is still pulling chunks of hair out of her head even after we’re well on our way to church that morning. Lessons learned… Don’t buy hair products from thrift shops around the world, and on the race you forget how to do simple things like how to do your hair. Don’t fight it… just let these things happen.
Kaitlin and I taught Thai students how to do the Electric Slide for class one day. Best class I’ve ever taught, and the most useful bit of information they’ll ever know. Takin the Electric Slide to the nations, homies. Ya just can’t beat it.
Sometimes we decide we’ll wake up at 3am, drive 2 hours to the mountains, and watch the sunrise over Laos. We drove 2 hours, solved mental math problems, looked at constellations, solved the worlds largest issues, visited 2 countries, and Brad rode an ostrich all before 8am. We just really like to make every minute count.
Most tatted up team goes to Drop the Mic. Between the 6 of us we have 15 tattoos, 6 of which were gotten in Thailand. New ink for dayzzzz.
Chiang Rai United soccer game with Davis, Win and Sharon. I mean I guess it’s normal to eat sushi at a soccer game instead of hot dogs and burgers. I don’t hate it. #winning
Friday night soccer under the lights with some of the students and parents from CRICS. I woulda never guess I’d be playin in a pickup soccer game, under the lights, on a Friday night in Thailand. Of all places. #sooomanyblisters
So next month we’ll be in Laos. It’s a closed country so guess what we decided we’d do? Make up secret agent names of course. They include Brad- Blue Jay. Sydney- Purple Dove. Kaitlin- Snow Leopard. Tommy- Pink Panther. Ronny- Black Seahorse (but really it’s Black Lavender). Jasmine- Red Baron. Sprads- Mint Manatee. Sharon- Mint Moose. David- Coffee Cobra. Davis- Fuchsia Frog (personal favorite). Winn- Silver Squid. Pretend like you don’t know these names… They’re actually top secret.
One day at school we wanted to help Coptar with his end of year/graduation project. We had to make things out of items you would normally throw away (so like paper, newspaper, bottles, balloons etc). Well, as we walk into the classroom we’re immediately asked what we can make with those items… we all look at each other and quickly say “nothing”. I’m sure the students were thinking we were useless at that point haha. They proceed to teach us how to make origami swans, frogs, hearts, and other such things. Needless to say, by the end of the day, we quite literally became origami masters. I’m rather prideful on my new found talents if I may say so myself.
When your team is nonchalantly sitting at a restaurant and suddenly the glass table you’re sitting at splits in half like the Titanic, glasses of water are spilling everywhere, and chunks of glass are sitting in Sydney’s lap. What can I say… The spirit of The Lord has blessed us all with Hulk like strength. Moral of the story— don’t mess with DTM.
Each night dinner means walking a good 15 minutes or a couple miles for the nearest food. On the nights when you don’t feel like taking the hike you sometimes decide to just stay back and eat some cereal or some of that popcorn you bought from the Thai festival. You’re satisfied with your decision until, when you look closely to the bag, you realize you’ve actually been eating handfuls of aunts that have somehow found their way into your cereal bag or popcorn bag. Ask Sydney and Kaitlin… it’s safe to say it’s possibly one of the most enraging and depressing moments of any day. At that point you just throw the bag away and call it a day. It’s bedtime.
Sometimes you’re at youth group one evening and you start playing Taboo as a quick ice breaker game with all the students. It’s Davis’s turn and to describe his word “code” he pulls out his secret code name Fuchsia Frog as a hint. Davis, I’m so PROUD!! Way to put to good use the greatest secret agent code name known to man.
Kaitlin likes to demonstrate her impeccable walking abilities by running into a bike helmet that’s hanging in the air and seconds later run into a sign that’s quite obviously placed in her path. It’s ok Kaitlin… walking isn’t for everyone, I guess.
While walking home from dinner one night our team decides to bombard Davis with a huge group bear hug in the middle of the road. Besides the barking dogs, and the maybe awkward looks from passing cars, the surprise attack was a success. We wuv you so much, Davis!!
When you get on your overnight bus that’s going to take you to the border of Laos, and you look around and don’t see a bathroom… You think to yourself I’m going to be on this bus for 14 hours and I can’t go to the bathroom?! Great. As soon as you pull out of the station the bus is immediately filled with this horrid poop stench. And I mean horrific. Ok where’s the bathroom cuz I smell it? Seconds later one of the bus drivers walks by with a plastic glove on, walks down a set of stairs, and you begin hearing sloshing noises and then the door shuts. Ok, we found the bathroom, but I’m just going to pretend it’s not there because the way that thing smelled… You couldn’t pay me enough to use it! Thank goodness whatever was the issue was resolved and our bus didn’t smell like poop that’s been sittin for days the entire 14 hour ride.