Madagascar is everything you imagine the WR to be. Aside from the living conditions and food; both were pretty nice.
Well, everything I imagined the Race to be… It’s 6:30am and no one can take a shower because we are low on water. You can’t use the showerheads because the city doesn’t have water during the day. Our water buckets are low because the power was out last night because of a huge storm (praise Lord!), and again, the water wasn’t working. So, not only is the water for our showers, but it’s also how we flush our toilets. So we have a very limited supply of water and a room full of sick people.
More than half my Squad has strep throat. This month is our all Squad month, which means we live together in close quarters. Naturally, we choose the month we’re all living together to get a highly contagious disease. Today will be the third time our Squad Leader’s have made a doctor visit, new people keep getting sick.
For me personally, I don’t have strep, but I am still down for the count. Here in the Capitol of Madagascar, we can’t drink the tap water… Leave it to me, to drink the tap water. I thought a container of water had been boiled, turns out, it had not. I woke up Tuesday morning with stomach cramps, and I’ve been using the bathroom constantly. I went to the doctor to make sure I didn’t have a parasite. When I spoke to the doctor, she told me that because my stomach is so sensitive, I needed to do a stool sample. So, I went in the room for my test and this guy hands me the smallest cup possible (I’m talking the sample cups from SAM’S or COSTCO), my team mate Desi was translating for me because she speaks French, she looks at me and goes “you have to poop in that cup”. I was flabbergasted. How was I supposed to poop in a cup that small?! So they give me tissues and point me in the direction of the bathroom and of course, it’s a squatty potty. It smelled so bad, I was overwhelmed, and in a foreign country. So I broke down crying and prayed, It’s only because of God that I had no issues completing the test. Thankfully, it was negative for parasites.
There is an extreme lack of WiFi here, only one ATM and that’s in front of the US Embassy, and no one takes debit cards. The bus (taxi) ride is intense. The seats are tiny (the very last seat on school buses sized) and are expected to hold two people, on the opposite side are two more people and in between a passenger places a board that the two outside people sit on to hold it in place and that’s where the fifth person sits. So you have five people in a row that should only fit three, maybe four.
In the city, little kids walk up to you begging for money because their families are homeless. It’s a country over run by poverty and sin. But it’s also a country that is ready for the revolution of God, they are ready for their chains to be broken. The Malagasy people need prayers, for strength against the devil, forgiveness towards those who have harmed them, for more rain, and for God’s love to be known here. We are the first WR Squad here but I don’t think we’ll be the last. God sent us here to start His revolution, He’s going to keep sending armies to make sure His revolution keeps growing. E Squad is just the beginning, God has a lot of plans for this beautiful island.
