“Donyebad Yesu” means “thank you Jesus” in Nepali. This was also a song that we learned to sing last month and once we performed it once, we were asked everywhere we went to sing it. “Thank you Jesus” was definitely the cry of my heart last month. Comfort was not a theme of the month—love was. After traveling the world for nine months and the ninth month being my by far least favorite, I went into month 10 in Nepal with no expectations really. I knew nothing about Nepal other than Mt. Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world, is located there. So, as I enter the month all I can think is it has to be better than Kenya. At 8 PM, I get on a bus that would be driving for the next 11 hours on the worst roads I have encountered so far in my life. My seat is almost in the very back of the bus and I often get nauseous in busses. The man’s seat in front of me is broken and will not sit up all the way so if I want any sort of comfort, I must hold it up with my knees with all of his weight pushing down on them. We wait to leave because furniture is being strapped to the top of our bus—couches. Finally, we depart and stop not fifteen minutes later to allow more people on the bus. Now there are not enough seats for everyone and people are standing in the aisles. We leave again and not even 30 minutes later we are stopping at a police post. I look out my window to see the bus driver arguing with the policeman. This continues for at least 15 minutes and then we are finally headed on our way. Or so I thought, within 30 minutes we are stopping on the side of the road for a bathroom break (ie…peeing on the side of the road) however, there is a huge drop off on the side of the road so there is no where for the women to go to the bathroom. So I literally peed right behind the bus in the middle of the road as everyone who passed saw my booty. Let’s just say, I wasn’t loving Nepal much at this point. Finally, we are on the road and moving along. We don’t stop again for a while. Enter the bumpiest roads on the World Race! After we began moving constantly, we began also encountering the worst roads I have ever driven on in a vehicle. We bob up and down as my knees are being pounded by the seat in front of me. I pop an Advil PM and attempt to sleep, but am awakened every few minutes by the seat pressing down against my knees. We stopped around midnight for dinner. Yes, dinner. I wasn’t going to get off of the bus, but decided that I needed to use this opportunity to go to the bathroom. So, I go in the restaurant and they direct me down a dark hallway. At the end is one of the worst squatty potties I have seen. I suck it up and take advantage of the fact I am not peeing in the middle of the road and use the toilet there. Then I stumble back on the bus in my sleepy stupor because of the Advil PM, and prop the man’s seat up with my knees. Somehow I sleep a little in the next stretch of the trip. No more stopping, we drive until we reach our stop at 6 AM. We are the only ones to get off of the bus at this place and they throw our bags on the side of the road and proceed. There seems to be nothing there. However, we spot a man standing by a van. Hoping he is a taxi, we flag him down to take us the rest of the way. The rest of the way is only 20 minutes, but remember how I said I was previously on the bumpiest road I have been on the World Race, this one was worse. FINALLY, we pull up to a little road side store where I see three of my teammates waiting for us. We grab our bags and carry them down a short strip of road into a schoolhouse. I quickly see this is not going to be a comfortable month. My eyes see one small room, five girls sleeping on the floor under a huge wall to wall mosquito net and one other girl sleeping in her tent with one ceiling fan. I don’t care! I am exhausted and lay down, immediately falling asleep. After I return to consciousness, I have to try to find an actual place for me to sleep. I tried one night on the floor, but it was killing my back. So, I noticed there was a small loveseat type couch and people had just put their bags on it. It wasn’t long enough for me, but I figured I would give it a shot. This became my bed all month. I had to crawl under the mosquito net, then out of it then under my mosquito net, so it was an ordeal every time and going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, meant climbing through all of those mosquito nets over actual bodies of sleeping individuals so I learned to hold it. All I could think was, “what did I do to deserve this?” Then I met the contacts. One thing about the World Race is you either love your contact, strongly dislike your contact, or you never see your contact after orientation. This month we had a loving contact that we loved right back. Meet Auntie and Uncle. The cutest little Nepali couple you ever could meet with the biggest hearts ever. They also had two sons that worked very closely with us and were amazingly loving. Thirteen World Racers, four family members, and some amazing neighbors all became one big Nepali family. The comfort factor went out the window. I didn’t mind sharing a room with a bunch of girls, crawling through a big net to get to my small couch, and sweating myself to sleep because every morning there was tea and biscuits waiting for me and once I asked for it, hot water so I could have coffee. It was very hot! The electricity only worked for half a day sometimes and we never knew when. We walked in the hot sun long distances with more clothes on than I would ever wear in America. We rode more of the afore mentioned busses many times. But, their smiling faces were always there for us at every meal, church service, and daily activity. To say they were angels would not be a lie. They were some of the sweetest, loving people I have ever met in my life and it wasn’t just to us, it was everyone we met or talked to.
Determined not to take the bus back to Kathmandu, we rented a Jeep. This Jeep ride would be our blessing after enduring all of the uncomfortableness throughout the month. The Jeep took a whole different route than the bus did. Instead of 11 hours, it only took seven. The best part is the route that it took was through the Himalayan mountains. We would go up one, then down one. We stopped at the top of a mountain to grab lunch. We saw the most beautiful picture that God has ever drawn over and over again for seven hours. Then we had a few days to play tourists and enjoy Kathmandu and meet up with our other friends on the squad. Once again, my complaint box was busted by blessings. It seems that every time I begin to go on a rant, something or someone comes in the picture that makes all of those complaints fall away. God truly does always have our heart’s desires in mind sometimes we just have to put ourselves and our thoughts aside so we can actually have those things.
