There are a lot of things that seem completely normal now that before the Race never would have… so, I thought I’d share a little bit about what World Race culture looks like!
My new idea of normal:
Strangers staring at you, shouting at you, snapping pictures of you, and touching your hair
No running water and electricity for only a couple hours at night
Using unconventional tools for basic tasks (shears to cut grass, windshield wipers to clean windows, butter knives and toilet brushes to sand a wall)
Having cake smashed in your face on your birthday
Talking about bathroom habits over meals
Fitting 25 people in a 15 passenger van (30 will never be normal!)
Sleeping on the floor for months in a row
Fumbling through greetings in 5 languages, trying to find the one to fit the country you’re currently in
Drinking juice, pop, and coffee out of a plastic bag
15 hour travel days
Alone time is sitting in the middle of a room full of people with your headphones on
Finding pieces of gravel, dirt, hair, or ants in your food and continuing to eat it anyway
Flocks of kids swarming you and following you everywhere
The first word of any language you learn is “white person” because that’s what everyone shouts at you as you walk past
Having a new “home” every month and it actually feeling like home after only a couple days
Seeing some of the world’s most beautiful sights
Having random strangers invade your personal space during travel – sleeping on you, leaning against you, or putting their personal items on top of you
Bathroom stops mean a bus pulling over on the side of the road for you to go use the “facilities” (an open field)
Seeing monks ride by on the back of a motorcycle or eating fast food at a table next to you
Wearing the same outfit for a week in a row
People making you aware of your flaws not out of anger or frustration, but because they genuinely care and want to see you grow
Coming around to squatty potties because sometimes they just seem simpler
Getting multiple marraige proposals in a few weeks time
Putting toilet paper in the trash can instead of flushing it
Rarely wearing shoes
The best compliment you can receive is that you look clean
Walking for an hour, or driving multiple hours just to get internet that takes 5 minutes to load a website.
Thinking of guinea pig, grasshoppers, and goats, and dogs as food
Men showing more skin than the women (I’ll save you the visual)
Buying all your new clothes for $5 or less
Daily travel that would be illegal in the States
Daily being taken to someone’s house to pray for a dying family member
All out dancing during church (probably one of my favorite norms!)
Being handed stranger’s babies
Dessert can mean anything from a cup of coffee to a piece of bread
The taxis you take most often are 15 passenger vans that squish 30 people inside, motorcycle taxis, bicycle taxis, or tuk tuks
Always being served hot soup and hot tea on the hottest days because you’re told it’ll help you cool down
Drinking fresh coconuts
Eating the same food, every meal, every day for a whole month
Elephants walking past you on the road
Church services in a language you don’t speak that last 3 hours or more
Always being prepared to preach or share a testimony
Wearing a skirt EVERY day
Seeing all kinds of things on the motorcycles passing you
Having your ankles swell to twice their size on a regular basis
Seeing 5 year old children carrying babies on their back
Getting $5 massages
Being prayed and phophecied over on a daily basis
Having casual conversations with prostitutes, and realizing just how much you care where they spend the night
Bucket showering with water you can’t exactly call clean
Kissing on the cheek seems like a more natural greeting than shaking hands
Doing charades with the doctors trying to treat you
Thinking of the homeless man on the corner as a friend you long to see again
Being asked to be an evangelist, preacher, teacher, construction worker, artist, youth worker, child wrangler, soccer player, singer, intercessor, painter, coffee harvester, and creative genius all wrapped in one
Yep, after a while we begin to feel like superheroes 😉
