It’s was a year of not only surrendering a salary, but my body. My mind. My spirit. And my sanity.
I didn’t have control over the food that I eat most of the time. And even when I did I quickly found out that healthy food is often out of budget.
I didn’t always have trails to run on. Or it was unsafe to run alone as a female. So I couldn’t. You couldn’t even run. Even though it was the one thing that keeps you sane and gave me some along time. So staircases become my best friend if I was blessed with one for the month.
There were almost always spiders in our showers, rooms, etc.
I didn’t get my period for the first 8 months, but then surprise, it was back with no sort of consistency what so ever!
Often I didn’t get warm showers which is fine in super warm weather but in 60s and below it sucked. One time I resort to using a tea kettle to fill up a bucket of water that I used to shower with or I just sucked it up and froze for 5 minutes.
Sometimes I just got mad because I couldn’t stay clean right after I showered.
We didn’t have much control over your bowel movements often. Talking about poop became a very normal thing.
Often we had to hurry up and wait. Rush to leave the house to meet a car when our ride doesn’t actually show up until hours later. Or prepare a sermon that we don’t actually use.
One time after a a squad session on forgiveness I lost it because I was angry and sad and mad all at the same time at what what going on in my life and in my relationship, and wanted to go hangout with people but I just couldn’t. So I sat in my top bunk with my Squad Leader and just cried with her as she held me for what seemed like hours.
Even though we told your host we haven’t have toilet paper for 3 days. We still didn’t not get it for another 3 days. Same with hot water.
AC In Togo. Yikes. It wasn’t really a thing even though we were told that it was if we individually paid more, which we did, but it still didn’t work.
Sometimes silence isn’t possible because random prayer chanting and singing happens at almost all hours of the day.
Its rare to not wake up to the sounds of a rooster crowing, dog barking (or dying I didn’t know the difference sometimes), or construction super close to you.
Sometimes I ate chips and cookies for lunch because it’s the only thing I could afford. Budgeting is hard sometimes
Sometimes we celebrated when our jimmy rigged toilet starts flushing again. The amount of times I’ve found joy from a toilet actually flushing is outstanding.
It became odd and unwise to leave the house and go somewhere public without toilet paper in my pocket.
Throwing toilet paper in the trash became normal.
I’ve been in far too many bathroom situations situations where I’ve used receipts to wipe. And I’ve experienced far too many drip drys.
We were under the mercy of your hosts or whoever’s perception of time every month. And every month it’s different. Adaptability is absolutely necessary.
I didn’t ever get used to being told something would happen at one time, prepare for it show up and then be told it wasn’t actually gonna happen.
Everyone has a very different perspective of punctuality, hosts, teammates, etc. 5pm doesn’t actually mean 5pm to a lot of people.
We had to wait a lot. For buses. For planes, Uber’s, grabs, hosts, teammates, etc.
Sometimes we asked for things and didn’t get them when we legit needed them. Like toilet paper, or for the dishes to be cleaned.
Sometimes it’s impossible to be alone. And that’s freaking frustrating.
Silence is nearly impossible to find. Unless you wake up super early. Even so I often heard probably hear dogs barking, roosters crowing, kids screaming, or sometimes a teammate snoring.
Sometimes I was blown away with how many things are common sense to me but not other people. All of these things are/were opportunities to grow in patience and communication.
Every time I worked out I have to plan when I’m going to wash my clothes, or I had to hand wash them right after so I can wear the exact same outfit the next morning
Comfort food is a big deal. When my squad mentors brought me treats from the US it’s a gift from heaven. You can buy American candy over seas but it’s really not the same
Almost always I wiped my wet hands on my pants or shirt. Apparently hand towels aren’t a universal thing, or paper towels, or hand driers.
We drank water out of bags in Ghana. That was normal. But it was really unfortunate when the same bagged water we drank from was put in the freezer/fridge right on top of the garlic and onion sauce. There was a transfer of flavors happening there that was real unfortunate.
One night in Cote d’Ivoire there was a huge storm and rain came through our window right through the torn tarp that was over our window. At first the cool breeze was nice, but then I realized I was the main one in the room being rained on through my mosquito net. I slept curled up in the fetal position on the far edge of my bed the night, I probably covered about 1/4th of the mattress, but at least I was mostly dry.
I’ve learned that bucket flushing toilets are sometimes more reliable than regular flushing toilets.
In most squatty potties, I almost always feared that I would in some way pee on my feet. Not gonna lie it happened a few times.
It wasn’t uncommon to have people stare at me in public, or even follow me, ask me for money, or ask me to take a selfie with them just because I’m white.
Sometimes I would notice that women especially didn’t even try to speak Spanish too me compared to my brunette friends. Yeah it kinda felt crappy to be overlooked and disregarded just because of the way I look. Literally I had a woman look me up and down one time then look at my brunette teammate and walk toward her and start talking to her even though I understood enough Spanish to answer her too. That was annoying!
Sometimes in places we lived the water would just randomly shut off. And that was real unfortunate if I felt real gross and wanted to shower at the end of the day. Or had to poop. yikes.
I saw a lot of stuff that just made me think “man, that’s not right, that’s not how things are supposed to be.” Things ranging from homelessness, seeing kids malnourished, kids being treated poorly by their parents or siblings, or bar girls throwing themselves at men that eat it up while their child wanders around the many bars.
One little girl who we knew much have belonged to one of the bar girls came up to us, didn’t talk, we don’t even know if she could, and just clung to us looking beyond sad and confused as women all around her danced on poles and random men.
We hangout with some orphans with crazy sad backgrounds. We just wanted to scoop them up and take them home with us.
We met kids whose parents neglected them, who were on the streets since they were born, and even were locked up in a basement room for almost the entirety of their 10 year old or so life.
Putting faces to stories broke my heart. Poverty broke my heart.
I never received it well when grown men would look at my girls and I up and down and say something along the lines of “Ladies, very nice” or “so beautiful” I always felt like there were other motives behind their words. I can think of only one time where I felt like it was genuine.
Most places when I had a conversation with a male for more than 5 minutes it turned into them perceiving me being interest in them.
I honestly cannot even tell you how many times I cried myself to sleep thinking about how much I missed my boyfriend and my family. Mostly my boyfriend, no offense fam, but I get to see you guys 5 months sooner than him.
Seeing tasteful PDA (simple hugs and kisses exchanged) honestly made my heart sink quite often. I just miss being with my love, and just sweet and innocent physical touch.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve cried on literally every single bus or plane. Those freaking rom-coms, get me and seriously just get me thinking of how much I miss my people! Or whatever podcast I listen to gets me!
So many times I’ve woken up in the morning and urgently had to use the bathroom but instead had to wait 20 minutes in pain and dancing around praying to Jesus that whoever is in the bathroom hurries the heck up!
It was wildly frustrating seeing people stuck somewhere or on the edge of breakthrough but they just didn’t want it for themselves as much as I wanted it for them. I saw so many people, even myself sometimes, make decisions and say things about themselves that just made me want to shake them and say, “STOP DOING THAT, that’s not good for you and you know it, or that’s not truth”
I have been a little worried that I won’t have community like this at home. And I freaking can’t stand the thought of not seeing these crazy awesome people. I get teared up every time I think of it.
