You read the blogs and they tell you all kinds of stories about life on the race, but I don't think I really got it until this month. Last month in Guatemala we had it so good! So we were sleeping in our tents and the nights were cold; that's nothing!
When Sweet Aroma started sharing that we would be on the tropical island of Roatan for the month of October, other squad members kept making comments about how much time we'd be spending on the beach for ministry. They couldn't be farther from reality here. Yes, we spent a day on the beach last Sunday (that's my next blog), but not since then have I put on a bathing suit. Apparently people forgot that with a tropical island comes tropical heat! I have never sweat so much in my life. Most of my pants already fit too big, after just one week. There is also the issue of tropical creatures. My legs look like and feel like I have chicken pox all over again. I'm convinced they are immune to deet. We have also encountered above average sized spiders, an assortment of lizards, bats, snakes, beetles, geckos, scorpions, butterfly-sized moths, and edible-sized crabs. That's just what we found in our actual living quarters. Well not really, but they were close enough to where we sleep to make me check my bed every night before crawling inside.
The work here is all manual labor from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday then half a day Saturday. We have been helping in the gardens, which means I got to machete back the tall grass that was shading the squash. Whacking a machete is hard core! I have a blister and totally feel like G.I. Jane. I've decided that using a machete is like using the vacuum. You can see your progress!
This is a stark contrast from anything I did as a teacher. I mean the most manual labor I did was moving textbooks on the first and last days of school. As hot as AMS is I have never spent a day sweating bucket loads like I am these days. Nearly all my shorts are already too big on me now.
The only thing you can be sure about on the race is that you never know what might happen. God surprises us in ways we never thought possible. I never expected to be eating beans and rice for lunch everyday and actually liking it. I never expected climbing trees to collect guavas for the day's dinner. I never knew what a hog plum was or that is made some really great juice. Or that you had to squish them in a bowl of water to make the juice. God has really surprised me by showing me that I'm really capable of so much more than I ever expected of myself. Keep in mind this is only 1 week into month 2! There are so many more surprises in store for me this year.
