Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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Where did the whole year go?

I mean, really. Time is going so fast it’s really getting ridiculous. I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that it’s Christmas time.

Maybe it’s partially because instead of walking through slush, snow, and ice, I’m walking around in mud, puddles of rainwater, and jungle-farm plant life. Christmas back home in Colorado looks like this:

making a lot of hot coffee drinks at Wesley Owens, shoveling snow (when I feel like being productive or if my mom REALLY pushes it :), plugging in the christmas lights on our Charlie-brown-ish christmas tree just because it feels more like Christmas then…finally getting the time to hang out with friends without worrying about projects, papers, or exams…making gifts for people or making cards, sleeping in.
Christmas this year looks like this:

Where cockroaches and strangely large toads are a norm, I get new bug bites every night (and sleep wearing repellent too!), I fall asleep to sounds coming from unidentifyable animals and wake up to monkeys being really loud and obnoxious. Where the coldest it gets might be in the 40’s if that, and I’m a good 3K from the closest road, and our “neighbors” aren’t quite just next door. I sleep on the top bunk bed in a house that might be the size of my living room at home – with 15 other people – and the only doors we have consist of tent fabric. I eat rice and beans DAILY (normally it’s a sure bet I’ll have it for breakfast), have to make a fire to heat up water to make myself some tea, actually need the rain to happen for showering purposes….

I mean…

can you blame me for not feeling all Christmas-seasony? It just feels like it’s been a long summer and it might be about June or July ish. December seems like it’s a long ways off; really, it’s close to being over. It’s really…surreal.

Overall though, I wanted to let you know that I’m in a good place. I’m starting to really understand how blessed my life’s been, how much I love and care about people back home, and how much they love and care about me. I’m starting to understand just how much I love interacting with people from different cultures – how much I miss it because we’re so isolated out here. I get to celebrate Christmas in a way I never have before – in the middle of a jungle, with a group of people I’m getting to know more and more every day. I get to be in a place where I can’t waste money on ANYTHING, really, because there’s nothing out here to waste it on. I get to spend Christmas with a few Costa Ricans who genuinely care about the North Americans sleeping under their roof.

Difficult sometimes?
YES.

But worth it.

If I could be at home with all of you and my friends and family…and then also here in the jungle somewhere in Chimurria, Costa Rica, both at the same time – I probably would. It’s going to be a strange Christmas here for me. I really do hope that we all enjoy Christmas though – don’t go missing me so much it ruins the fun! And I’ll try to do the same.

With that I guess, MERRY CHRISTMAS! Thanks for all the support you all give me! It doesn’t go unnoticed, I promise!