The Race got weird sometimes. There were moments where I just sat there, mouth agape thinking “is this really my life right now?” I mean, if I were in America I wouldn’t be digging bug larvae out of my feet, or if I needed to get somewhere I would just hop in my car whereas on the race, just to get to a grocery store I would have to take a bus then a subway and a taxi and that was an easy day.
So I thought, what if I sat down and counted not only the crazy weird and amazing things that happened on my race, but the number of times they happened, and the result was this list. Enjoy!
Transportation
Number of flights= 13
Number of layovers= 7 (Santa Cruz, Miami, JFK, Istanbul, Qatar x2, China)
Longest layover= 20 hrs (New York)
Longest flight= 12 hrs (China-LA)
Number of transport types= 26 ( Public bus, private bus, plane, 4×4, subway, truck, moto, car, motor bike, Trufi, ambulance, Range Rover, teleferico, Coombie, Chapa, bicycle, taxi, train, horse cart, van, ferry, song tao, tuk tuk, boat, elephant, bamboo raft)
Longest travel “day”= 5 days (and two times, first from Trujillo, Peru to Cochabamba, Bolivia and the second from Plettenberg Bay, South AFrica to Beira, Mozambique)
Most hours spent on a single bus=22 (Maputo, Mozambique-Beira, Moz.)
Most people crammed into a 13 passenger Bolivian Trufi= 38
Most borders crossed in a single travel day= 4 (Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania)
Longest time spent at a border crossing= 6hrs (crossing from Swaziland into Mozambique, we slept on the floor…)
Number of times we missed the bus in Albania and had to walk home at midnight= 2
Life
Number of months I had a washing machine= 2
Number of months I had a dryer= 0
Number of months spent sleeping in a tent= 2 (South Africa, Mozambique)
Number of weeks my sleeping pad lasted before popping= 3
Coldest temperature experienced= 5 degrees F (Romania)
Hottest temperature experienced= 100+ degrees F (Cambodia)
Number of layers we would wear to stay warm in Romania= 3-4
Number of trash bags full of donated clothes we went through in Romania= 12 (thank goodness of these clothes or we would have frozen in our mostly out door ministry)
Number of bug bites I got after not sleeping under a mosquito net for one night in Mozambique= 414, not an exaggeration. It’s a miracle I didn’t get Malaria.
Number of Montequenas I dug out of my foot in Mozambique= 5
Number of Montequenas Nick dug out of his feet= 14
Number of doctor visits= 4
Greatest number of medical students in one room during a visit= 8 (Bolivia, it was ridiculous)
Number of times I threw up on a bus= 1 (Albania)
Number of people on my team that proceeded to get that same stomach virus after me= 4
Number of bathrooms we had available to us during said stomach virus incident= 1 (It wasn’t pretty)
Number of times I pooped my pants= I’ll keep that number to myself, but I’ll just say parasites are ridiculous and I probably hold a World Race record in this category.
Number of “Lost” seasons watched by my team= 6
Amount we spent on a week of groceries for my team of 7 in Romania= $70
Amount of time it took us to get to the Romanian grocery store from our house= 1.5 hours
Number of times we ate biscuits in Romania= 16
Number of haircuts= 1
Number of visits to a SE Asian fish spa= 2
Number of headphones I went through= 10
Number of sunglasses I went through= 6
Number of flip flops I went through=4
Number of months my jeans lasted= 5, barely
Number of fans we broke in Cambodia= 3
Number of exotic animals we saw in Africa= 12 (monkey, elephant, zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, impala, kudu, lion, hippo, rhino, crocodile, warthog)
Number of mornings monkeys woke me up in South Africa= 18
Ministry
Church services attended= 45
Number of hours spent in the “Sweatbox” (our Malaysian transportation)= 57
Magazines I personally sold in Albania= 2 (what can I say, I’m not a saleswoman)
Number of classrooms I painted in Bolivia= 4
Number of healings witnessed= 3
Longest commute= approx. 1.5 hours, sometimes longer (Malaysia)
Number of Months Beira, Mozambique had been without rain before we got there= 3
Number of weeks it took for the rain to come after we arrived= 1
Number of english classes taught in Cambodia= 45
Number of walls we built for our church in Ecuador= 3
Number of parades I was in= 1 (Bolivia)
Number of months we performed the “Everything Skit”= 2 (Ecuador, Albania)
Number of people we cooked for daily in South Africa without an oven= 28
Number of times we swam with the kids in the Cambodian rice bog= 4
Number of cups of Milo/Nescafe drank during Malaysian house visits= 16
Number of pairs of socks passed out to gypsy kids in Romania= 40
And to think, this list is only the tip of the ice berg, I didn’t even get into crazy bathroom incidents! I guess it will be saved for another day, to laugh about and reminisce.
Romanian trash bag fashion
