Day 0
The usual: fried noodles for lunch, fried rice for dinner. What could possibly go wrong?
Day 1
– Saltines, which apparently only exist in North America, so your teammate gets the next best thing: some sort of sweet-ish butter cracker, sans the butter, because who knows what havoc dairy could wreak on your body?
– Water with WHO-recommended “orange” flavoured rehydration salts. Hannah does not recommend them. Pro-tip: If you ever need to get electrolytes into your system, pick Gatorade. Or coconut water. Or pretty much anything else.
Day 2
– A veggie and cheese crepe. Two bites is plenty, but you hate to waste food and eat most of it anyway.
– Pad Thai, which you realize is a mistake almost as soon as the order leaves your lips. You don’t want to offend the cook, who assumes her culinary creation is displeasing to you, and ask for a takeaway box – that is, tinfoil and a plastic bag.
Day 3
10:15am – The guesthouse miraculously has power (possibly because another team left, and the staff turned on the generator to vacuum), so you put your life on hold and make 16-cent ramen.
2:00pm – You really hate to waste food, so you decide to give yesterday’s Pad Thai another try. Yay for climates that eliminate the need for refrigerators. The noodles are grossly overseasoned, but you manage half and throw the rest away.
6:30pm – You realize, far too late, that oily foods is what’s upsetting your stomach, so you venture out, and much to your teammates’ amusement, buy two cucumbers and a pomelo. Dinner is served.
Day 4
You call Mama Lin, who approves of the detox diet and encourages continual consumption of like food groups. You later discover that the diet consisted of negative calorie foods and was counterproductive to the pursuit of regaining energy.
– Toast, two eggs sunny side up, and for good measure, cauliflower and peas off your teammate’s plate. Who would have thought home tastes like good ol’ steamed vegetables?
– An (expensive) walnut brownie with vanilla ice cream. Living life on the edge.
– Popcorn, because it seems like the epitome of a light dinner.
– Oranges, but only because you mishear the price before the vendor guilts you into buying them. Then, he doesn’t have enough money, and gives you change in the form of…you guessed it – yet another, albeit larger, orange. The fact that you never wanted any in the first place gets lost in translation.
– Last night’s leftovers, aka the second cucumber.
– A chocolate croissant, because it catches your fancy on the walk back to the guesthouse. But as soon as it touches your mouth, your stomach just says no. It becomes a love offering to the first teammate you see. Community living at its finest.
Day 5
– A mushroom veggie burger, because you’ve been eyeing it for days. But the patty comes fried, effectively ruining the meal, so you eat the sides of salad and fries, and leave the burger untouched. You’re past the whole wasting food thing at this point, and that’s when you realize something is actually wrong. Time to go see a doctor. Who, by the way, generously gifts you with an armful of rehydration packets to add to your stash back home.
– A blueberry muffin, because it is the closest thing to fruit you can find on short notice.
– A wheat roll. Thank the Lord for bread. And antibiotics.
So as you may have guessed by now – I got sick last month. Not to worry, it was nothing serious, and my lovely Amala teammates took wonderful care of me. But joking aside, this is what life on the Race looks like sometimes. Praising God for renewed health, and praying that it stays that way!
