I can’t even believe I am saying this, but I have finally crossed the half way mark of the race! Part of me can’t believe that so much time has past, and part of me can’t believe that I have so much time left. I said six hard goodbyes, and have five more ahead of me. I have called six places my home, and have five new homes that await me. I have had six months that have transformed me, and five more to sharpen me. When I look back on the last six months and see what God has done in and around me, I can’t believe that there is still so much more that lies ahead of me.
Up until this point, you have read a few stories of my time on the race, but if you’re anything like my sister, you want to know the fun little details of what life has looked like in these places. Where did I sleep? Did we have real bathrooms? What kind of animals did I see? You know, the fun stuff. So I’m going to tell you…
MONTH 1- MANIPUR, INDIA:
Team: Daughters Ablaze (7 girls)
Living situation–
Sleeping arrangements:
- For two weeks we slept in a school
- For one week we slept in bamboo huts.
Bathrooms:
- Real toilets while in the school
- Squatty potties while in the grass huts
- Bucket showers, heated over an open fire and brought to us each morning by a sweet man named Tonga.
Dining:
- We dined as a squad in a big circus tent
- Food was prepared over an open fire outside
- We ate curry and on occasion we were blessed with fried chicken and mashed potatoes.
- Chai and cookies were set out for us every morning.
India in January is the perfect time of year to visit. I had heard many stories of the extremely hot summer days in India, but we happened to be visiting in the middle of winter. We had brisk nights, early mornings and hot afternoons. The highs in the 80’s and lows in the 40’s. We woke up to the fog starting to lift and the sun shining through the trees. We saw banana trees, papaya trees, palm trees and pine trees. The craziest animals we saw were the suicidal cows that walked up and down the streets. Trash was thrown on the ground and in river beds, then burned in little piles wherever people felt like burning it. The smell of burning garbage followed us everywhere we went.
MONTH 2- NEPAL:
Team Daughters Ablaze (7 girls)
Living situation-
Sleeping arrangements:
- 54 people in three, small connecting flats
- 18 of those people (including my team) slept side by side in a dark basement with no windows. Oh and electricity was never a sure thing.
Bathroom:
- 3 bathrooms and 1 squatty (in the basement with me)
- Only 1 shower with hot water. We were only allowed two, 2-minute showers a week. But because 54 people are all trying to use the shower, I only got one, once a week.
Dining:
- 20 people one very small kitchen, cooking for each other…. We ate a lot of PB&J.
Nepal was also in its winter months, so the weather was just about perfect—highs reaching 75 and dropping as low as 37 at night. Nepal was a very dirty place, the ground around us became our garbage can. We were given three options: 1) hold your garbage for hours until you find a garbage (while looking crazy for caring your garbage) 2) hand it to a local and let them drop it for you or 3) go against every thing you know and drop it on the ground (careful to be sure mom isn’t hiding around the corner telling you, “Pick that up!”). Everywhere we went we would cover our noses and mouths so we didn’t breath in all the dirt that coated the air. The only thing I can really say about the smell in Nepal is: dirt and sweat. Between the dirt in the air, the sweat from the street kids we played soccer with and the smell of dirty shoes out side our door, holding your breath was always a good idea. Monkeys hung out on rooftops and telephone poles. Hundreds of dogs ran the streets, including Ryan who became our guard dog. He hung outside our gate and followed us wherever we went. On a clear day you could see the snowy caps of the Himalayas from our roof top. Buddhist and Hindu temples and carved images of their gods were everywhere we went. We had the opportunity to do Jericho prayer walks around some of these temples, a month and a half later an earthquake hit and knocked some of those walls down. Coincidence?
MONTH 3- SOUTH AFRICA:
Team Daughters Ablaze (6 girls)
Living situation-
Sleeping arrangements :
- First week, hostel style living with all of us crammed in one room
- Last three weeks, 2 rooms and real beds
Bathroom:
- Real toilets
- Hot showers… as many and as long as you wanted 🙂
Dining:
- Cooked for ourselves in our own kitchen
- The hostel we stayed at also put on two brai (aka BBQ) nights a week so we ate with the locals and other backpackers
South Africa was just going into winter so the weather was starting to get cold. We had to suffer with highs in the 90s and in the evening lows in the 50s. Hot humid days made us very thankful for being so close to the ocean. One of the first things I remember about Durban was the smell of the salty breeze coming off the Indian Ocean, filling the air wherever we went. I had seen the sun set over the ocean many times, but it was a totally different experience watching it rise over the Indian Ocean every morning. We often had monkeys stop by the hostel to say a quick hello from the avocado trees, and we were greeted every morning with the squawk of the hadida, given the name for the sound they make as they fly. Even though the area we were staying was very clean and westernized, 30 minutes away were thousands of people living is the slums, locally known as “townships”. We had the opportunity to work with some of these families while we were there.
On a return visit to South Africa I was able to go on a safari where I saw all kinds of animals such as: elephants, giraffes, rhinos, hippos, lion, leopard, crocodile, zebra, buffalo, monkeys, warthog, impala and antelope. Birds: yellow billed hornbill (aka zazu), lilac-breasted roller and many others I don’t know the names for.
MONTH 4- SWAZILAND:
Team Daughters Ablaze (6 girls)
Living situation-
Sleeping arrangements:
- We were blessed to have our own little cabin on top of a mountain that overlooked a sea of mountains.
Bathrooms:
- Real toilets
- Hot showers
Dining:
- 22 girls one kitchen, each team took turns cooking for the rest of the girls
Swaziland—my month on the mountain top. I was blessed to wake up every morning to the fog lifting out of the valley and revealing mountains that stretched out as far as the eye could see. Temperatures were in the high 70s and the low 40s. We roomed with many geckos that so kindly ate all our unwelcome guests such as spiders and moths. Millipedes scurried around the rocks and the mamba snakes stayed hidden in the long grass. The smell of no-bake cookies would bring all the girls running to the kitchen. We worked with kids in the afternoons and in the garden every morning. One day while shucking corn in the corn field, we met a Swaziland princes (ya can’t make this stuff up).
MONTH 5- MOZAMBIQUE:
Team Dunamis (4 girls, 3 guys)
Living situation-
Sleeping arrangements:
- Although most of the houses around us were mud huts, we stayed in a concrete house.
- We set up two tents for two people in each room and left no room for walking. The tents were set up to keep misquotes, spiders and cockroaches out.
Bathroom:
- Squatty potty… basically a hole in the ground with a five foot grass wall around it and lots of flies.
- Cold bucket shower outside in a grass stall. I would wait until nighttime so that as I showered, I could look up and see palm trees and stars. I felt like I was living the life.
Dining:
- Bread roll for breakfast
- Rice and beans/fish/prawns/greens for lunch
- Rice and beans/fish/prawns/greens for dinner (all food prepared for us over an open fire outside)
Mozambique was very hot, temperatures in the high 80’s and lows in the 50’s. We lived at an orphanage with three other homes living in community with us. We were surrounded by coconut trees, papaya trees, guava trees, banana trees and lemon trees. The ground was a beautiful white sand that people would wake up every morning and sweep to keep it clean. I felt like I was in paradise; the only thing missing was the bright blue ocean. Every night we saw the milky way galaxy, brighter than I have ever seen it before. Transportation was on the back of a motorcycle or in a 14-passenger van packed full with 24+ people with no AC. Between the hot packed full buses and the babies with no diapers, the smell of BO and pee filled the air. We saw birds of every color fly around in the sky, monkeys, a snail as big as your face and watched geckos scurry around the house changing colors right in front of us as they stocked their prey.
MONTH 6- LATVIA
Team Dunamis (4 girls, 4 guys)
Living situation-
Sleeping arrangements:
- Stayed in an old school. The girls shared one big room with our own little space.
Bathroom:
- Real toilets
- Hot shower
Dining:
We ate as a big group with people from the center and had some crazy food:
- Pig snout soup… with potatoes
- Liver soup… with potatoes
- Beats, eggs, celery and onion, cold soup… with potatoes
- Potato pancakes
- Buckwheat something or other
- and Potatoes on a stick (they love their potatoes 🙂 )
We came to Latvia early summer, the weather was a little cooler than we had been used to, but it was refreshing and gave us an excuse to wear cute sweaters they had for us. The temperatures were in the high 70’s and lows in the 40’s. We spent the month working in the garden, chopping trees in the forest, dog walking or simple chores around the center. The icy blue eyes of the husky puppies melted out hearts every day. We were in the countryside surrounded by fields of yellow flowers and forests. The aroma flowers and was everywhere from outside in the garden and in each room of the center; we knew that it was springtime in Latvia. The only store was a tiny little shop that literally only took five steps to get across the whole shop. The main bird we saw was the stork, and to my surprise, they were not carrying around babies. However, we did see baby storks pop their heads out of the nest from time to time. We ate strawberries and chocolate while watching the sun set over the Baltic Sea. In the town of Kuldiga only 20 minutes away, stands the widest waterfall in all of Europe, so we had the joy of walking across it.
It’s been such an awesome adventure so far, and after looking back over the last few months, I feel so blessed that God picked me to go on such an amazing journey around the world. I can’t even imagine what the next few months hold, but I’m so excited to find out. If you have any questions about my last few months, please message me; I would love to tell you more.
