The second night in Managua, KK was the MC of the Race Awards Ceremony.
We started the Ceremony by sharing stories of each of our Races: one team stayed in a Marriott the night before the Race; another team fundraised with their ministry by selling cookies to raise money for a TicaBus ride; one person almost got hit by a bus [yours truly], one team's bus was broken down on the side of the road, but they were rescued by another bus within minutes and were dropped off at the gates of the compound; two teams didn’t get in to Managua until 2 in the morning; and there were so many other great stories!
At the Awards Ceremony, every team was recognized and given a prize for one thing or another: arriving the cleanest [because they stayed the night before in the Marriott], arriving first overall, having the shortest travel time, being the "most awesome team," and whatever else KK was able to come up with on the spot.
Two team remained as she went up the ranks: Tumbler and Sweet Aroma. KK said the top two teams were close, within a few hundred points of each other. But Team Tumbler came out on top! Our winnings included the $100 as advertised as well as a box of candy canes. The rest of the night was spent celebrating with Oreos and other goodies as a squad for a successful Race: everyone made it and nobody got hurt/lost/stolen.
This was the first travel day that we were completely on our own. I know my team learned so much from doing the Race. We spent a few hours as a team debriefing the travel and how everyone felt during and afterwards. As a team, we discussed how we could better distribute the responsibilities of travel throughout the team, especially at the border. This was a great learning experience and I hope we get to participate in another Race during the remaining 8 months! We have yet to spend our winnings. We talked about it a bit, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise; I'll save that for another blog! 🙂
