Some of my favorite days on the World Race have been travel days. You pop in your earbuds, cram your purse between your knees because there is no other place for it, and just watch the world pass by and let your mind wander. It is the time to be still, to reflect and to dream. And it is also time to see vast expanses of countryside or crowded city streets all in one sitting.
Usually travel days happen once a month (and for J Squad they have always been plural; daysssss or even travel week). But now that I am a Squad Leader they come almost biweekly as I hop across the country from team to team. The never really unpacking but then somehow taking an hour to repack can get annoying, but they perks are that I get to see more of each country than anyone else on the squad.
I remember sitting on a rooftop in Haiti when the Lord started talking to me about squad leading…. “Wouldn’t it be cool to get to travel across each country and see more….? To be on the move and get to meet more people on the way? I could throw so many surprises your way, daughter.”
And now here I sit in that reality. On a Tuk Tuk in Cambodia, my pack at my feet on my way to visit team Just Love (my former Dunamiss loves) who are living in a tree house in the middle of a sugarcane field. I have my knockoff Ray Bans on that I bought from a man with an open suitcase full of them, and Jesus is playing with my hair as it blows in the wind. The world is alive before me.
But Jesus told me not to keep this joy all to myself.
I invite you. Come be a world traveler with me. There is room in the Tuk Tuk for you too. Come see what I spy with my little eye:
- Something pregnant; mango trees, branches hung low to the ground, dripping with fruit
- Chizzled features; seven Cambodian men clinging to a giant mass of rock in the center of a roundabout. Hammers and chizzles are dizzy with activity as they chip away stone to reveal the profile of mega Buddha.
- Stilts; they hold up the wooden houses that sit atop the rice patties.
- A donkey; he is lashed to a cart pulling hundreds of pounds in rice that has baked in the sun just like the sun-withered old man that is seated on top of the mound like a king on a throne.
- Uniform; Camouflage and badges and all things official and orderly adorn a Cambodian military official. All formality is broken with his huge papa smile and the little naked baby he is holding close to his badged chest.
- Yellow; the color of the dusty complex surrounded in high spiked walls and barbed wire. An engraved sign written in English sits near the front gate, “Center for Women Development”.
- Locomotion; cars, Tuk Tuks, flat-bed trucks, motos, bicycles, donkeys with carts, small horses with cars, giant white oxen and human feet.
- Shade; in the form of triangular fan hats worn by the rice patty workers that and kneeling in the fields, forearms deep in water cultivating golden grains.
- Royal Purple; the color of the water lilies that brush against the side of a hand hallowed canoe as it cuts through the lush water jungle.
- Sardines; silver flashes being pulled out of a woven blue net by a woman who places them in a bucket to be sold at the town market later in the day.
- Determination; A dusty faced woman hoses down the strip of road in front of her home to stop the dust from rising and coating her garden as cars and TukTuks drive past.
- Marigold; a monk’s robe. His eyes are wrinkled in a smile as he pours seeds out on the ground for local chickens.
- A playground full of pleats; Cambodian children are on recess. White starched shirts and navy blue trousers or skirts race around the dusty school yard.
- A Cambodian parade; Five shiny watering cans all bobbing by the side of the road being carried by five monks wrapped in marigold, walking in an orderly line in their bare feet, all of them being followed by one brown goat.
- A Tonka truck; three small boys with bamboo fishing poles take turns pushing it through the dust.
- A bath tub; filled to the top with motor oil, one ladle and a “sale” sign.
- A hole; four feet deep, being dug by one man as nine others lounge around like Grecian statues watching.
- A small flame; one lit candle flickers at Buddha’s feet while a small Asian man kneels with hands in a prayer position at his forehead.
- Rust; A sea of rusted tin roofs bake under the hot sun, each roof adorned with its own satellite dish. Even in riverside slums, families will fight to get cable before they fight to get food.
- A town square; beautifully manicured and at its center a huge brass sculpture; A revolver bigger than three men with one large knot tied in its barrel.
- The Asian Squat; men, women, and children. Waiting at bus stations, engaged in side of the road discussions, on lunch breaks… anywhere and everywhere, it’s a good time to hunker down into the squat.
I spy with my little eye a home. It's on stilts in the middle of a sugarcane field and it's filled with smiling faces of seven women I love more than life itself. Travel always leads to a home. It’s time to semi-unpack and make some new memories. Thanks for taking the time to sit beside me and watch the world pass by. Next time we travel together it will be across Africa. I can’t wait to see what surprised God has in store for us.
