Questions from the Peanut Gallery:
- Tell about your food experiences:
My food experiences have honestly not been quite as bad as I had anticipated. We were spoiled with good home cooking many months. Here is a breakdown for you:
Albania – We had a kitchen and cooked for ourselves. Women all along the street just outside sold fresh produce so we had tons of delicious fruit and veggies. Albanian watermelon is by far the sweetest stuff out there. Sometimes we had traditional Albanian salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, and cheese. Whenever we ate out we had Albanian pizza or Souflache which is kind of like schwarma. And gelato. Every day.
Romania – All-Squad month. We had a kitchen and took turns cooking for 55 people. We had anything from homemade fried chicken, chili, tortillas made from scratch, spaghetti, and lots of sandwiches for lunch.
Greece – We may have only been in Greece for a week, but we ate some good food. Sausage, grilled halloumi cheese, and of course, gelato.
Malawi – Our host family cooked for us, and we ate breakfast at the motel we slept at. Breakfast everyday was three slices of white bread with butter (not toasted), French fries, hot milk with sugar, and if we were lucky, an egg. Lunch and dinner were delicious but overwhelming. Most meals greeted us with a whole pot of rice, another pot of French fries, another one of spaghetti noodles, and then a small pot of veggies/greens, and a small pot of protein (tiny chicken leg or small hunk of beef, or 1 hard boiled egg). Dinner also came with nsima, the corn flour dough thing that is made with corn flour and hot water. This is when we really entered into carb world. Our pastor also insisted that we come back from seconds and thirds. We were so full all the time, yet our bodies craved more protein.
Zambia – Kitchen with an oven! We lived with another team so we did meals together, and this was one of our best cooking months. Breakfast for dinner, pancake buffet, burgers, stir fry, brownies, apple crisp – we had it all. We had to go into town to get internet at the cafes so our diet also included lots of chocolate milkshakes and chocolate cake.
Cambodia – Cue the cultural change. Food was both amazing and very weird. We stayed at the center for the street children, so we ate breakfast and lunch with them and did our own dinner. Our cook was fabulous and made amazing fried rice, fried noodles, and soups. But we also had things like pigs feet appear from the kitchen…we were not very adventurous, and neither were the kids…We learned how to make spring rolls, and how to properly cut a pineapple as well.
(not my picture, but you get the idea)
Thailand – So good. Cashew chicken, pad thai, Muslim fried chicken off the street, and tons of good fruit. I also had to start drinking chocolate milk to calm the spicy in my stomach. Even ramen noodles were too hot to handle. We did eat at the same restaurant in our little village almost everyday though…so things did get a little redundant. Watermelon or pineapple shakes were amazing. Pineapple with chili salt is also the way to go (keeps the acid from burning your mouth).
Malaysia – Apartment with a kitchen, so we cooked for ourselves. Did manage to get some good Indian food a few times thanks to the local Indian population. And of course the fresh fruit. I have never enjoyed pineapple so much as when I was in Asia. And our team loved Chili’s (they exist all over Asia), so we managed to eat there a few times too.
Ecuador – Kitchen with a crock pot! Teammates cooked awesome food. It was cooler so we ate a lot of soups and chilies. Finally got to make mom’s sloppy joes because beef was so cheap in Ecuador. Snacks off the street were empanadas and hot chocolate.
Peru – We had a stove and a cook. She made us lunch every day and it was awesome. All traditional Peruvian dishes (with lots of rice), fresh juices (passion fruit and star fruit were the best). We ate eggs and avocados for breakfast and dinner. And oatmeal with fresh mangoes cooked into it. On an off day we ate at a local restaurant where we got the traditional South American lunch (huge bowl of soup followed by the main dish of rice, veggies, meat, potatoes). Our chicken soup was so good, but then my spoon hit what I thought was the hunk of chicken and bone in the bottom of the bowl. I brought it up and it turned out the be an entire chicken foot, claws and all.
Bolivia – We had a cook and she was amazing. Fried plantains, bread and jam for breakfast, seasoned meat patties, all the chicken, and she understood our desire for lots of veggies. So many raw onions, to kill the bacteria of course. Still lots of rice and bread, but she fed us well. Lunch was difficult, as we were in the tropics, but it is traditional for Bolivians to eat hot soup when it is hot outside. So at 2 in the afternoon when we are dripping with sweat from the heat and humidity, she gives us steaming bowls of soup. We probably drank our own sweat that dripped into the bowls. There was one day that we ate lunch at a church that was celebrating their anniversary. We got soup with intestines in it. That’s probably as crazy as it got for us. Oh, and the empanadas I ate off the street in Oruro on our way to Chile…bad plan…I spent the first few days in Chile in bed. Cue fourth antibiotic dose of the Race
Chile – Our host is cooking for us. So good. Soups for lunch, but with real sustenance, not just loads of noodles, and also lots of cooked veggies and things just thrown in a pot together that come out amazing. The closest we’ve come to home cooking. It’s fall here, so between the changing leaves, cooler days, and good comfort food we feel at home. Chileans also like their bread, and our pastor knows how to bake bread so we eat plenty of that. Every night we have bread and jam before bed. Dinner is served very late, anywhere from 8 to 10 pm. We also learned how to make pies and tarts the other day…so spoiled.
Rice was a staple part of our meals in 6 countries, and would have been in more if we didn’t have the opportunity to cook for ourselves some months. Bread was eaten in every country, but no one can hold a candle to South Americans and the way they eat bread. Each village in Bolivia had their own type of bread that they baked every morning and ate for breakfast. So, if anything was consistent from country to country, it has definitely been carbs. But we have been so grateful to partake in traditional meals with all of our new families and experience another piece of life with them. Oh, and ice cream. Ice cream everywhere.
- Favorite ministry day/moment
I can’t possibly have just one.
- The day I studied the book of Esther with one of our teens in Albania.
- All the fun and silly days singing and acting out bible stories in Malawi.
- Spending a day in Little India in Malaysia praying for people.
- Spending an afternoon one-on-one with the little boy with autism in our orphanage in Ecuador, and finally getting him to smile and laugh at me.
- The day we went to a women’s rehab center in Peru to talk about our identity in Christ and share our stories.
- Doing ministry with my mom in Peru.
- Favorite off day activity
Definitely a combination of things. We got to visit Machu Picchu and hike Machu Picchu mountain, which is definitely a place I have been wanting to go, so that was a fun day. When in Zambia a few of us went on a horseback safari and then got dressed up for a dinner cruise down the Zambezi river which was also a lot of fun. And of course just being able to go to the beach whenever we wanted in Thailand, where it was quiet and had no tourists was a dream on any day.
- Were you faced with an occasion when you just wanted to come home and how did you work through that?
Bolivia. The month in Bolivia was hard for a number of reasons. None of our hosts spoke English so I was constantly in translation mode, our host thought I was the team leader for half the month, it was the second to last month, it was so hot, there were so many cultural taboos that kept us from doing things, communication was a struggle, and we didn’t feel like we were able to make much of an impact. I was not going to actually go home, but there were definitely days when I just wanted to give up and be done with everything. My team and the Lord were some of the few things that got me through that month. My teammates are fabulous and know when I am pushing too hard and getting stressed out, so they make a way for me to rest, even if it means skipping three church meetings in one day. I learned a lot about Sabbath and rest that month, and how rest is not always physical rest. We did have a great time bonding as a team and were able to carry each other through the month. We spent many meals hysterically laughing at everything, because we just didn’t know what else to do. So it was a long month, and there is still processing and learning to be had from it, but spending time with the Lord was key, as well as trying to see the bright side of things. Sometimes we play the “thankful game” on the squad, where you list all of the things you are thankful for, usually in a time when you are not feeling thankful about anything. I remember one day when the heat had defeated me and I was taking a cold shower that I had to make myself list things that I was thankful for because I was about to lose it.
- Best clothing item bought on the race
My Asian pants I bought in Greece. I just couldn’t wait for Thailand, and they have actually held up better than any of my thai pants have. My chetengue (sp?) from Africa makes a close second. It was basically two meters of fabric, but it made for a very easy and beautiful skirt, and could easily double as a towl/blanket/table cloth…be creative.
- Best item bought on the race in general:
Baby powder, hands down. When all you do is sweat day in and day out, the ability to feel dry, even if just for a moment, is a godsend. It also helps with chaffing, warding off heat rash, and making you smell a little better. Just don’t get too much on your face or else your teammates will call you an Asian child. We learned about this gem in Cambodia when all of the kids would come out after their showers covered in powder. We didn’t understand until we tried it. Geniuses.
- How many things have you ditched
So many tshirts. Constant sweating does things to your clothes…at this point I’ve probably thrown away at least 9 tshirts, several pairs of underwear and a couple of sports bras. Before I go home, all my shorts and a few more shirts will be added to that pile. I have also tossed my Albanian speakers that only made it to month 4 before they broke, broken flip flops, and my towel (smelled like something died).
- How many times have you actually slept in your tent
Not very many. I chose to sleep outside in Romania because it was at least 20 degrees cooler than my bed near the hot kitchen, so I used my tent for about half the month. There were a few nights at a camping hostel in Malawi as well. In Zambia and Cambodia I slept in my hammock with a mosquito net instead of my tent. We had rooms last month in Bolivia, but there were mosquitoes and giant spiders so we had our tents set up to protect from the bugs. Except they don’t tell you that fans just can’t penetrate the mesh on your tent, so I ended up pulling my sleeping pad out of my tent and sleeping directly in front of the fan instead. It was die of heat, or get a few mosquito bites. I took the mosquitoes.
***Update on life: We are in our final month in Chile! It is fall here, and it is amazing. Feels like home. We are working with Pastor Ruben and his church in Los Andes, painting murals, organizing small group studies, going to church meetings and services, and hoping to pray for people at the hospital next week. It is gorgeous and we have the Andes mountains in our backyard. We are here 10 more days, then we head to final debrief with the squad, and then we come home! It is so crazy that we are already here. If you have any more questions about this experience feel free to comment or email, I am open to sharing.
