With the race coming to an end, my rad teammate and I started reflecting on the super-weird, not-ok, and frowned upon things that we do on a regular basis. Here’s a ~shortened~ list of hilarious but embarrassing occurrences that Caitlin and I remember doing in the past 11 months, and that we (probably) will never do again when we go home in 16 days. Enjoy!
23 things that become normal on the World Race:
1. Wearing the same clothes for days in a row because it smells “ok” and may or may not have a stain (or two) on it
2. Eating peanut butter out of the jar at any point during the day because you’ve eaten rice and beans every day for the past eleven months
3. Saying a bathroom is “super nice!!!” with the only requirement being that it had toilet paper & a toilet seat
4. Wearing completely mismatched outfits in public and not caring because fashion is a foreign concept nowadays
5. Not knowing the last time you brushed your hair…because who can tell anyways?
6. Using your crystal light water to brush your teeth because the sink water isn’t drinkable and you’re not about to waste that crystal light packet
7. When you are eating and find a bug (or multiple) in your food but pick it out and continue eating without hesitation because extra protein doesn’t hurt anyone
8. Realizing you’ve been with the same five people 24 hours a day for seven months straight and actually enjoying it
9. Going days without showering or concluding a “baby wipe shower” makes you clean enough because cold bucket showers/ disgusting bathrooms don’t really make you clean do they?
10. Picking out each other’s lice so often it becomes a party with movies and snacks included
11. Passing along sicknesses left & right and sharing eye drops, cipro, and anti-malarials like they’re candy
12. Learning how to communicate in any language using charades, hand gestures, and facial expressions (and regularly making good friends that way)
13. Feeling like a model when you borrow your teammate’s shirt and actually put on mascara
14. Being totally fine with the fact that your ministry host picks you up a solid 5 hours after he said or a four hour bus ride turns into a ten hour bus ride… Time is relative.
15. Not expecting to have electricity or running water (even in the middle of a city) because those are extras
16. When being woken up by hissing cats, barking dogs, chanting with drums, or wailing women just means an impromptu prayer sesh in the middle of the night
17. Seeing goats, pigs, and all the farm animals literally everywhere
18. Becoming nonchalant about people staring at and taking pictures of you or pointing at you and screaming “WHITE PEOPLE!”
19. Feeling overjoyed (maybe crying happy tears) when you see pop tarts or Resees at the corner market
20. Literally praising the lord when walking in a place with air conditioning & reminiscing about a time when that was a normal occurrence
21. Laughing it off when the woman giving you a pedicure gasps for air and wipes the sweat off her forehead while trying to exfoliate your heels (thanks, africa + chacos)
22. Sleeping anywhere- concrete floors, church benches, bus seats, and airport floors because privacy doesn’t exist & travel days are long (60+ hours to be exact)
23. Being so squished in a taxi, bus, top top, or other vehicle that you’re practically sitting in a stranger’s lap, resulting in a marriage proposal.
