In Cambodia, our squad participated in something called the Awakening. It was a gathering of four different squads coming together and celebrating Jesus and obtaining knowledge from each other. Each of the squads are at different points of their Race. It was nice to ask advice from people who were in month 8 while we were only in month 4 at the time.
During the Awakening, we had an activity with all the women of the squads – speed dating. We sat in a very long line across from each other and had one minute to ask someone a question and then move on to the next woman. The questions ranged from “What is one thing you miss from back home?” to “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
The question I remember the best is “What is one of your biggest fears?”
I answered this with – being in the shower with shampoo all in my hair and the water running out.
Ok I know that is somewhat silly but I’m not afraid of heights or spiders or any of the typical things so this is the first thing that popped into my head.
Truly a fear on the Race too because the water isn’t always readily available or I don’t always know where it comes from so if it runs out I don’t know how to get more.
In India we drew water from a well to take a bucket shower. In Nepal a water truck delivered water into a tank at our house that we had to keep checking on to make sure the water level was high enough to use. In Cambodia we had a water tank somewhere but it always seemed to be at a low level because the water pressure sucked.
Many of these times, I was afraid I would be using the last of the water and would run out before I could finish my shower. I’ve already gotten into the habit of turning off the water while I shampoo my hair to help conserve, but sometimes it’s just not enough.
Well now we are in Albania living in a small apartment. When we first arrived, I crashed for 15 hours after having been up all night in Rome and only getting 3 hours of sleep the night before that. I had wanted to shower before I went to sleep but my body said no. When I awoke in the morning, I was ready to shower and wash the travel days off of me.
When I turned on the shower, the pressure was basically nothing. No problem, I did that in Cambodia as well. I assumed the tank was low also (wherever the tank even is…) because of the low pressure so as usual I turned off the water while I put shampoo in my hair.
I didn’t use a ton of shampoo because with the lack of water pressure, I knew it would be difficult to rinse all of the shampoo out. As I try to turn the water back on, nothing came out of the pipe. Ok don’t panic, give it a minute….nope. Out of water. My biggest fear had actually just happened.
Soooo now what? The only water we had in the house was from the large jug we purchased for our drinking water (we still can’t drink from the tap). There was no way we could lift that jug but I remembered that I had filled my water bottle the night before and could use that.
I wrapped up in a towel with shampoo in my hair and called for help. Thankfully I have 5 other teammates not two feet away. Hillary came to my rescue and grabbed my water bottle and helped me pour it on my hair. Only wishing I hadn’t had the bottle in the fridge the whole night….it was a bit frigid to say the least.
I was still disgusting from travel day and wanted to wash my body too. It was a sort of sponge bath sort of splashing soap and water on myself and then rinsing with the ice water from my water bottle.
Welcome to Albania. Interesting first morning to say the least. Thankfully the water was only out because the electricity was not on. It came back on about an hour later so my other teammates were able to take normal showers.
I wouldn’t want to go through that experience again but now I know I can face and conquer my fears! 😉
