This is a blog I wrote in Argentina that I never completely finished there, but have decided to post anyway. Don’t worry… I am alive and well and am sorry I haven’t posted anything lately. I will be posting many more blogs in the next week! š Love ya all!
We are wrapping up things in Argentina and tomorrow morning we fly out to Africa. I took a long walk this afternoon and reflected on my time here. This honestly, has been one of the worst weeks for me as far as being on the race goes…yet itĀ“s been one of the best because I feel like as much of the testing and crap (literally) that IĀ“ve been through this week…IĀ“m growing. This is how my week went…
Thursday- We got in at 3 am, got to the hostel and I fell asleep. I slept all day till about 2, woke up for awhile, went back to sleep for about a hour, woke up for another hour and then slept from about 7 pm till 7am the next morning.
Friday- We load up and get ready to head to another hostel. Our place was party central the night before. We have all of our bags below and are waiting for a taxi. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something falling next to me and hear it hit the sidewalk. ItĀ“s bird poop. I turned to Meagan and said, ĀØWow, that was closeĀØ. I then looked down at my sleeve only to notice that the bird not only hit the sidewalk, but also managed to hit me. Now normally, I could boast about never being pooped on. But this is now the second time, on the second day (last month it was race day in Lima) that weĀ“ve been in a new country and this has happened. I kind of laugh it off, but was kind of frustrated as well.
So I went back into the hostel we just checked out of and tried my best to get it off the sleeve of my coat. We left and went to the new hostel, checked in and enjoyed the rest of the day by staying in the hostel.
Saturday- The media girls are all in our room getting ready to head out for the day. IĀ“m excited becuase itĀ“s kind of the first offical day on the town. I decide that I would curl my hair, put on make-up, the whole deal. I had been struggling with my self esteem lately and was constantly comparing myself to others. (easy to do in community living whether it’s physically, spiritually, etc) So, I thought this might help.
I plugged in my iron and we kind of smell something burning. I check out the iron and there is black stuff all over it. We agree that it is some kind of hair product, but itĀ“s still okay to use. So, I start to curl my hair…bad move
I hear a sizzling sound and look in the mirror and see smoke coming from my head. I take the iron away and not only did the iron come away, but so did a nice chunk of my hair. Whatever the black stuff was, my hair stuck to it, so I literally burned off my hair.
ItĀ“s great when you are in a room full of girls cause everyone first is in shock and their mouths hang open. Then there is immediatly lots of talk like, “ItĀ“s not that bad”, or “we can fix this”. I even said, “I think IĀ“m in shock” and laughed. The smell was so bad though, that I went into the bathroom and tried to wash it out…only it didnĀ“t come out, it just stunk more like a bad perm. All the girls came in, I burst into tears, saying, “ItĀ“s only hair”…., and we decided that it would be girl day and we could go to a salon and get it fixed. It end up that it was kind of only noticable when I pulled it back into a ponytail (since the hair was gone and now there was a small, orange streak to part of it) so Erin fixed it up (thank you!) and we didnĀ“t get anything done, but still headed out. I was hurting inside because of how I looked. I really wanted to just blow it off and change my attitude, but was really wrestling inside of what I thought of how I looked and how I thought others saw me. I ended up buying some big gerber daisies and chocolate to ĀØhelpĀØ.
Sunday- After church, we decide to walk somewhere to go out for lunch. I have two parts of to my winter coat, so IĀ“m wearing the inside, fleece part (since the other part still needs to be washed from poop experience #2) and walking and talking with Meagan. Suddenly, I hear another plop and said, “Oh, youĀ“ve got to be kidding.” I turned around and Meagan smiled and said, “Oh, Anne….” Yep, I got hit by another bird.
The rest of the group was up ahead, so we caught up and I showed them what happened. This time not only did it get on my arm, but there was also a little bit in my hair. IĀ“m the kind of person that doesnĀ“t mind cleaning up poop, urine, blood, etc with gloves …itĀ“s just afterwords, I scrub and scrub and scrub..till I feel clean. We were in front of a ice cream place and they all wanted me to stay and get some ice cream, but by then, I had it. The little bit in my hair just grossed me out and I felt I needed to go back and just scrub and scrub it off. So, Telfer walked me back to the hostel. I went upstairs, tired, hungry, feeling disgusting and sat on my bed and was like WHY GOD??? WHY ME??
My flowers next to my bed caught my eye and I remembered what God told me before the trip started. This year was about getting closer to Him, closer than IĀ“ve ever been. In it, one of the lesson He wanted to show me was the beauty that was inside of me, but in order to do that, there was a lot that I needed to give up. Lots that I needed to be stripped of before I could really “see”. I don’t look now like I would “normally” look like in the states (long hair and glasses) Back home, I would spend a long time in the morning getting myself ready physically in the morning, but no time preparing myself spiritually. How could God show me what he wanted to if I was not willing to take the time to listen? I had to be stripped of some of the simple things to turn my attention to Him. And sometimes, when I really am not listening or putting it on “the back burner”, he uses a couple of birds and a bad curling iron to call me back and re focus on Him. š Then He tenderly shows me that I am His and that He loves me because He created me to be me…and there is no comparison. š
