The title of this entry, vomo, -ere, -ui, -itus, provides the four principle parts of the Latin verb vomo, which means, you guessed it, vomit. I figure it's appropriate, since this is a story about vomiting that is set in Rome.
I just came back home to Puyallup, Washington, from about three weeks of wonderful vacation time with my family. We left on June 25 for two weeks in Italy and Croatia, a memorable trip full of family and new experiences and great photos and awkward language barriers. Then we came home, did laundry, and went to Orcas Island, one of the islands in the San Juans in northern Washington. My family's been coming here for decades, and it might be my favorite place in the world. But more on Orcas later. Let's go back to Italy and Croatia. More specifically, let's go back to Italy, to Rome, to the first and worst day of our trip.
The purpose of our visit in Italy was to go to Siena, but we flew into Rome and wanted to have some time to adjust to the time change. So we decided to take a day to rest up and enjoy some temporary frolicking in the Eternal City. We had been to Rome before, but this time my high school Latin teacher gave us a list of things to look for that we hadn't seen yet. We explored the museum on the Capitoline Hill, saw the Largo di Torre Argentina, the area where Julius Caesar was assassinated, and saw (but didn't stand in line to stick our hands in) the Bocca della Verita, or the Mouth of Truth, into which oath-swearers would put their hands as a testament to their honesty. (If they were lying, their hands would get bitten off.)
Our tour was supposed to end at the nearby Cloaca Maxima, where the mouth of the Great Sewer opens into the Tiber River, but by that point we were so jet-lagged we didn't bother looking for it too much. It was all we could to do to drag ourselves back to the hotel and fall onto our beds until dinner. So we did not see the Cloaca Maxima. Little did I know that I would be getting pretty cozy with Rome's plumbing system anyway that night.
One of my fears about World Race has been getting sick abroad. I know that there's a lot that can happen when you are in new places, doing new things, and eating new foods, and the thought of coming down with some disease in another country is something that really makes me nervous. In particular, I've been afraid of throwing up. I hate throwing up. And until a couple weeks ago, I had quite the vomit streak going- I hadn't thrown up in years (click here: Seinfeld!)
My sister, Kate, was the first to feel sick. She was nauseated and couldn't go with the other four of us to dinner. At a nearby restaurant I ordered some sort of pasta with frutti di mare (mistake) and by the end of dinner I wasn't feeling too great myself. Meanwhile Kate was beginning to throw up, and my brother David denied feeling anything yet. But when there are three of you sharing a little room and there's sickness in the air, it's only a matter of time. By midnight, all three of us were taking turns vomiting, getting air outside, and trying to sleep. Our well-choreographed visits to the toilet lasted through the night. It was awful. I hadn't felt that sick in a long time. I didn't want to see my frutti di mare again. I was scared of throwing up, and scared of losing a night's sleep, because that's just not healthy. But I did throw up, and I did not sleep, and you know what? Now, when it's a month behind me, I'm pretty glad that happened. Because I learned that getting sick happens, and it'll be okay.
And then there's the fact that I got to get a stomach virus with David and Kate. It's too bad we were all sick, but it was a great comfort to know that my brother and sister around the room were undergoing the same kinds of suffering. We were able to support each other (David in particular was great at finding more plastic bags to put by the beds), and when morning came and we had to stay in bed the entire day, postponing our departure for Siena, we amused ourselves by feebly joking and playing music and trying to walk around the room. Oh, and once we were up to it, we all feasted together on crackers, sports drinks, and anti-nausea medicine.
So here's one thing God has shown me: I will probably get sick on World Race at some point. Maybe I'll need to go to the doctor, or throw up. And it may be awful. But it will also be okay, because with God is the safest place to be. He's awfully kind, and it will be a blessing to be surrounded by his love and be able to trust in his provision and his people without any notion that I can do anything on my own getting in the way of letting God creatively and boldly work his glory out in the world.
