The other day we went to a 75ish year old lady’s house to clean out her yard, which looked like the Secret Garden before that little British girl worked her magic. It was full of what reminded me of those plants from Jumanji (the monster vines that come out of nowhere and grab people.) We had a lot o’ help and plenty o’ tools, which was refreshingly easy compared to some of the machete machinery in our last few continents. Another change was that instead of letting us work for about five minutes and then demanding we rest our feeble white skinned selves, this Russian speaking sassy molassy Babushka named Baba Vera was going to have us actually work, which I was more than ok with…at first.
Now, I’ve really bragged about my immune system on the Race since month one- it’s been a running joke that I might be one of the grossest people alive, which is why I’ve built up immunity and never actually been sick. When my entire team came down with ringworm, they tried giving it to me by rubbing my arm… and nothing. As my squad mates are coming down with Malaria, Typhoid, Mono, etc, I’m drinking the tap water and doing fine…
Ukraine=the exception
There are a few factors as to why I became sicker than I’ve been on the entire race within like 30 minutes:
- Baba Vera’s “grape juice”: a.k.a-fermented since USSR, Barney colored thick liquid I chugged out of tea cups which looked like they’d been dug up from a Soviet Union time capsule(unwashed)
- Baba Vera’s attire: she may or may not have been wearing a sheer, hole-y(unfortunately placed mind you) Bon Jovi screen tee…let’s just say she gives love a bad name if you know what I mean.
- Baba Vera’s snack: boiled egg+ greasy sausage stick I managed to guzzle
- Baba Vera’s “toilet”: OK, I’m completely used to hole in the ground out houses by now, but this was described to me as “where the ducks live”-and after we had to move a pile of fishing lined lumber out of the way to even see the hole, I was more than leery and queasy
All I’m saying is, I, all of a sudden, had a massive attack of diarrhea in that out house from hades where toilet paper options became interesting. I yelled to my teammate from my rotting shack to ask for any type of tissue she hadn’t used to blow her runny nose on, and she came back with two options: her neon pink bandana or coloring book pages.
Went with the bandana on this one and make shifted my way out of a Dumb& Dumber toilet scene of a bowel malfunction… only to be followed by two bouts of puking up whatever Ukrainian meat I’d consumed.
Let’s just say that I’ve officially lost the “Iron Maiden” title of excellent immunity, but it was worth seeing Baba Vera’s souped up yard. She said we would never forget that day, which I definitely concurred, but not just because her provisions wrecked my guts. We got to hear some killer stories of her back in the old days, and she kissed our hands to thank us for being “good girls” and the workers God had sent.
