Traveling on the World Race can be somewhat of a unique experience country to country, but there are several things you can learn to expect…
-there is no such thing as "on time"
-you will hurry up just to wait.
-"sustenance" can consist of the same two ingredients for three days.
-if it can… breakdown, be delayed, draw attention from the authorities, or be stolen, it probably will.
-sleep happens…standing up, in the aisle of a bus, for 30 minutes at a time…
-prayers will never cease… for the one bungie cord strapping your bags to the roof.
To give you a little glimpse into the traveling adventures of D Squad…
These are the Travel Diaries: Month 6 en route to Tanzania!
Saturday, June 2- Tuesday June 5
Saturday:
10a.m. we left our ministry contacts in Lugansk, Ukraine and took an 18 hr train to Kiev. Most of the time was spent sleeping, reading, or learning guitar chords. I soaked up my last 18 hours with team Meizon, because I knew when we got to Kiev I would be leaving them to join another team and Mark Rowdon would take my place.*
*We found out our last week in Ukraine that there would be ANOTHER team change. The team change affected 4 out of 5 teams. When I found out I was being switched I was a little nervous but still excited because each team change brought amazing divine appointments from God. My new team is an incredible group of 6 girls (including myself) and I'm proud to be with them! The five girls I joined have been a team for the last two months, and when their teammate Ryan Miller decided it was his time to go home, Mark was left as the only guy on their team, so Mark and I switched places, making my new team all girls and integrating Mark into team Meizon.
Sunday:
4:40 a.m. arrived at the Kiev train station. Caught taxis from there to the Kiev airport.
4:57 a.m. arrived at the airport, only to discover that no one in our car knew which terminal we were supposed to go to, and our team leader was in the other taxi.
5:12 a.m. found our way to the right terminal and met up with our other 3 teammates, and waited…
7:15 a.m. the rest of D Squad arrived at the terminal! I was so excited to see them after a month of being apart! Our new teams were formed! When my new team greeted me at the airport they gave me a warm welcome and presented me with a team necklace!
8:10 a.m. Loaded up my pack into my airporter and lined up to check our bags.
8:21 a.m. Remembered that I needed to start my malaria medication again, so I popped one while waiting in line.
8:30a.m. threw up in the bag check line… I started to feel nauseaous after taking my meds, so my squadmate Dan grabbed a trashcan and put it behind an area closed off by two curtains. We were only five feet away from the line of people but he held the curtains closed so I didn't have to get sick in public. My team leader Ashley rubbed my back while Nurse Julie held my hair. It was an awesome experience.
9:30a.m. went to our gate and waited for our flight to board.
11a.m. plane to Istanbul, Turkey!
1p.m. arrived at the Istanbul airport and had a squad meeting. Then had hang out time. D Squad knows how to sprawl!
RANDOM BLESSING—>
met a group of Californian men in their fifties (missionaries) who established a seminary in Tajikistan. They wanted to know all about world race and my testimony and one of them spoke so much life over me, it was crazy.
5p.m. greeted our Passport- WR Exposure friends!* and gave them a little D Squad orientation. Our team got two new members for the month, Morgan and Abigail!
*Passport-WR Exposure is this one month AIM mission trip where college students are placed within a WR squad for a month of ministry (D Squad was selected to host this group!). So basically each team gets two new teammates for the month.
6:30p.m. boarded the plane to Tanzania! Let me tell you, if you ever fly internationally, Turkish Airlines is probably the greatest airline ever. If there were awards, it would win…everything. Best food. Best in-flight entertainment. (each seat has it's own phone, where you can call other passengers 🙂 and a tv stocked with movies and tv shows-all american, of course) Best favors- you get a cute little toiletry bag with goodies- ear plugs, eye mask, warm socks, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc. D Squad has an assortment of toiletry bags from our several flights with Turkish airlines. Best flights ever.
Monday:
2:45 a.m. Arrived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania! filled out visa forms and checked in, which took an hour (we had to pay visa fees and get our finger prints done.)
4:15a.m. loaded up all our packs on a bus and drove to a hotel nearby. (which…when we got on the bus, some of us thought we were driving for 4 hours and then stopping at a hostel…misinformed, obviously, and surprised when I had just fallen asleep and we arrived at the hotel.
4:45a.m. arrived at a VERY nice hotel for race life that messengers of our ministry contact hooked us up with. confused? after we got all checked in and had our rooms, they told us each room (with two people in each) would be $45 for the night, including breakfast. WAY out of our budget, considering we could afford $5 a day for each person. Who recommended this hotel to us? Crazy. But we are BLESSED with amazing team leaders who somehow worked out our budget so that we could stay at this hotel for a day until our bus could take us to our contact. We didn't even go over budget!!!
6a.m. slept in a bungalow. awesome. It had hot water showers and a big double bed with a huge mosquito net. And AC. What a blessing! We could have been stuck on the side of the road, but instead the Lord placed us in this amazing hotel.
8:30a.m. got up because breakfast was free, so who would pass that up? ate a wonderfully filling breakfast of an omelet, crepe, and toast, with fresh mango juice and coffee.
9a.m. went back to sleep for 4 hours.
1p.m. woke up and explored the strip outside our hotel. (a long dirt road with tons of kids walking home from school and people riding motorcycles) It led to a big highway with stores lining the road. (not american stores, obviously, so imagine like old run-down buildings with hand-made signs and broken windows.)
4-6p.m. hung out around the hotel and had a team meeting.
9p.m. turned in early to get some shut eye!
4:15a.m. woke up and got dressed.
4:45a.m. gathered the squad outside the hotel, ready to load up our bus, which was due to arrive at 5a.m.
6:30a.m. still waiting for our bus to arrive… the hotel internet finally started working so everyone scrambled to use it…
6:50a.m. our bus finally arrives. its a 30 person bus…and we have 33 people…and ALL of our packs. Most of which we needed to fit INSIDE the bus…
7:30a.m. after we attempt to fit everyone inside the bus and some of our packs, with the rest of our packs on top…we have finally gotten almost everyone in the bus… seriously…people were climbing in the bus windows to fit everyone … they tell us we need to get off and unpack the bus because they are going to go get us a bigger one. "it will only take us two hours, we will be back with a bigger bus."
11:54a.m. The next bus finally arrives. It's surprisingly similar to the first bus we tried to fit on, but after a lot of squishing and shoving,
12:15p.m. we were able to fit everyone "comfortably" and "cozily" in the bus and hit the road for our 12 hour journey to Mbeya City.
Britt finding refuge on the bus. She's a wild one.
Aisha was sick the entire bus ride but she still enjoyed the beautiful view.
we survived the travel days eating bread and jam sandwiches, and
supplemented with bananas we bargained for at a gas station.
Tuesday:
6:28 a.m. after 18 hours on the bus we finally arrived in Mbeya City. The ride that was only supposed to take twelve hours was delayed due to several factors.
-five bathroom & banana pit stops
-we were pulled over by the cops 3 times, the last time we were stopped for an hour and questioned.
-driving through a national park we had to slow down to see the monkeys and zebras cross the road, and take pictures of all the wildlife– elephants, giraffes, water buffalo.
-our four bus drivers decided they all needed to stop to sleep for 2 hours, even though only one of them had been driving the entire time…
-our windshield cracked and we had to stop so they could super-glue it together.
When we finally arrived in Mbeya we were greeted by Pastor Adam and his mother Sarah, and Bishop Makumele. The bus dropped us off right in front of the church, so we didn't have far to walk. They served us tea and chapattee (flour tortillas) and we slept until we were rested again!
This travel week is the all-encompassing description of World Race travel…not average, but definitely the epitome of adventure.
