Wild N’ Out
World Race Style: Part 2
What’s up
friends and family?
It’s that time
again. The crazy experiences of the World Race have been piling up since the
first time I made a Wild N’ Out blog, so unfortunately I know I will never be
able to capture all of the wild/hilarious memories that have been happening.
But its all good; most are better off told in person, so catch me when I get
back home for some more detailed, ridiculous stories. Still, I hope these will
be enough to keep your interest and give you a good laugh for now.
Before I start
though, let me just give you a brief update on my status now. We finally made
it to Africa this past week… and when I say “finally” I cant even begin to
describe the reality behind that word. After an entire week of travel
(literally over 168 hours) we arrived at our ministry contact’s house in
Blantyre, Malawi on Friday 11/5. The weather, landscape, culture, and faith of
the people here are all incredible. It is more than worth every second of the
centuries it took to get here, as God has already blessed us abundantly in
every way possible. The bulk of our ministry is doing “crusades” in rural
villages within the region, which essentially include teaching, worship,
fellowship, and recreation with these communities that our ministry has
developed a relationship with and will continue to serve after we leave. The
first one this past weekend was fruitful, eye-opening, and challenging in many
ways; we definitely got a taste of the intense spirituality of Africa, o man.
Nevertheless,
the epic journey from Bucharest, Romania to Blantyre, Malawi is certainly
worthy to be the first entry of this Wild N’ Out WR style update. So here we go:
1. Arguably the most epic travel experience
of World Race history, it started with a simple bus ride to the Bucharest airport,
followed by our first flight to Istanbul, Turkey. After sharing some stuffed
grape leaves with a couple waiting for our flight with us, we buzzed into the
heart of the Middle East, Dubai. Fly Emirates is probably the nicest airline
ive ever traveled… they give you hot towels! To go along with that, Dubai
airport is by far the sweetest airport too, with free showers, a spa, 5 star
restaurants, and every top of the line designer store you could think of. Anyways,
our last flight left Dubai at 430 a.m. and landed in beautiful Johannesburg 7
hours later. Africa is well known for not being the most reliable place for
plans and schedules, however, and our bus that was supposed to pick us up never
showed. But hey, who wouldn’t wanna spend a night in Jo-burg S.A.? The only
problem was, our bus never showed up the next day either… So we chilled and
worshipped that night and finally caught our bus on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. We had
more people than seats but it was a blast road-tripping through Africa with all
of us crazy Americans. The
real fun began when we had to cross our first African border, into Zimbabwe. If
you ever want to travel around Africa, make sure you have all the time and
patience in the world to handle crossing borders. They’re not cheap and they’re
far from efficient… and there is plenty of people who would love to “help” you;
unfortunately, the ones with uniforms who actually can help you (but can’t
charge you some crazy price for their fake services) don’t really want to do
so. Anyways, 5 ½ hours later, we made it through and got to enjoy some of the
wild African countryside. Some baboons got a little overconfident (or just
oblivious) as they ran across the road in front of our bus. A few bathroom,
gas, and food stops later, we got to the Zimbabwe border, but we were too late
for the day. And let me tell you, you’ll never take a bed for granted again
after trying to sleep covered in sweat with nowhere to move on a bus at a
border in the middle of nowhere. This
was only the beginning of our waiting at this border, though, as it took from 6
a.m. until 230 p.m. to be allowed into Mozambique. Throughout the day, we had a
showdown with a pretend bathroom assistant (she won, some nice truck driver
paid for the girls to use the toilet), ate some hard-boiled eggs we bought from
some kids (Ill probably never eat one again), got yelled at for making a human
wall in front of our girls so they could pee in the open and avoid the bathroom
Nazi, sang some worship songs that totally revamped our attitudes and faith, and
survived an attack from a small funnel cloud that swept through the area and
directly through our bus (it was like being in a mini-version of the movie
Twister). Needless
to say, this unexpected century we spent at this border caused us to be cutting
it close for making it to the last border (Mozambique/Malawi) on time. Our bus
driver had some tricks up his sleeve, however, running over a median to get us ahead
of the line that was waiting and hoping to cross this bridge that was under
construction. I gave him props, it was a sick move, and it paid off. We got
over the bridge and were on schedule to make it to the border on time… it was
too bad a storm knocked out the electricity at the border and they closed an
hour early. Guess what that meant? Another night at a border! Holla! This
was for sure the climax of our escapades, as we decided the guys would sleep
outside around the bus in protection mode so the ladies could stretch out a
little bit inside for the night; I don’t think sleeping on dirty pavement under
a semi-truck will ever sound so glorious again… nor will curling up in the
luggage compartment to stay warm at 430 am. You probably think I’m kidding, but
I absolutely loved every minute of this night, especially doing my shift of our
prayer patrol around the bus. The funniest part was seeing how confused the
real security guard was as he was walking around, feeling like we were competing
with him. We didn’t need him though; Jesus had us on lockdown as He walked with
us in our prayers all night. For the secret chapter of our interactions with
the “real” security guard, you’ll have to ask me in person sometime… it’ll be
well worth your time. After
some shady money exchanges, which didn’t make some locals too happy, we finally
got into Malawi around 7 am Friday morning. We immediately discovered Malawi’s
national slogan to be true: Malawi, the warm heart of Africa. There was a noticeable
difference in people’s demeanor and attitude towards us, showing nothing but
kindness and friendliness… thankfully this is a reality that has continued in
literally every interaction we’ve had so far this month. Anyways, one more
police check later, we finally arrived in Blantyre, Malawi, 2 pm. Friday afternoon,
just about 168 hours (1 week) since we left our house in Bucharest, Romania.
Traveling will never be the same for any of us before. I love it. I would do it
all over again if I could. Let me know if you wanna travel around Africa
sometime, I’m in.
Ok,
back to the Wild N’ Out list, I promise the rest won’t be so long!
2. Stumbling upon a local poker tournament
in Bucharest was one of the coolest experiences of these past 4 months. They loved
my broken Romanian, and this gypsy guy was ecstatic that he was playing with
Americans. They thought we were easy money for their pockets… sorry guys.
3. I learned that you’re never too old to
have fun playing laser tag… especially in a sweet maze course covered in glow
in the dark paint.
4. Here’s a tip: don’t touch a Moldovan
farmer’s tractor as he drives by…
5. It was great to practice my covert ops
skills when my team had to sneak out of a major Transnistrian celebration at a school
assembly during a scene change, all so that our contact could escape
face-to-face awkwardness and embarrassment with the Transnistrian Vice
President of Education in having to tell her that we were not the U.S.
Ambassadors of Drug and Alcohol Education that she thought we were.
6. Ill never forget the looks and reactions
I got from the old Russian babushkas I invited to our college-age English
classes; a good mix of, “for real”? and “aren’t you so sweet.” Most of them,
though, were too confused to respond at all.
7. If you ever get the chance to go to a
Sauna/Spa in Moldova, do it. I think these were some of the best nights of the
Race. If you go with the right people, they may teach you some National
Moldovan dances. And no, I’m not using “sauna/spa” as a code word for nightclub…
I’ll never be able to really describe what a Moldovan sauna is like.
8. Some women we fellowshipped with in
Transnistria gave everyone on my team a stuffed animal as a gift, each somewhat
representing what they thought of us… I got a purple-chest pterodactyl… what
the heck is that supposed to mean about me? Everyone else got a normal animal,
like dogs, cats, even a frog… my animal doesn’t even exist, and looks
ridiculous! If you have any thoughts about how this freak-animal represents me,
hit me up, id love to hear some ideas.
9. Raving to Russian techno music at our
youth meetings at our church in Transnistria was definitely a highlight…
literally, with the neon glow sticks… corny joke, I know, you can laugh though,
please.
10. Running out of gas and having to push the
van off the main road in our village in Transnistria was pretty funny.
11. For all of you Lancastrians, I met a guy
in a pub in Dublin that had a Franklin and Marshall college t-shirt. As he
listened to me ask questions about it, he played me for about 10 minutes,
having me convinced that his sister went there, then flat out told me he was
lying. I hope Irish humor isn’t typically that bad.
12. Taking the sleeper trains from Bucharest
to Moldova and back were some unforgettable experiences. They were straight
outta the 50’s and always had interesting people to meet… most notably the
Moldovan customs agent who woke us up at 4 a.m. and struggled to use his
minimal English to question us: “Drugs?”
he said in a thick Russian accent. “Purpose, tourism?” he asked. Then he left… shadiest
customs check ever.
13. We dug a sweet squatty potty in Moldova
for the girls cottage. I was the one to christen it. Gotta start it off right,
u know?
14. My team was some of the first Americans
to see this centuries-old fortress in Transnistria. It used to me a Soviet Missile
site, but they wouldn’t take me to see where they used to house them… I’m
convinced they still have some missiles in this shady bunker that was covered
with earth to look like a hill. They did let my friend Kyle and I be the first
Americans to lift this 80 kg cannon ball. That thing could do some damage
15. The last day we were in Transnistria, all
of us guys cut our into fo-hawks… if you don’t know what that is, its basically
a toned-down Mohawk that’s pretty popular and fashionable in Europe. We didn’t
know we would be starting a trend in our village though until our final youth
meeting that night when all the teenage boys wanted me to cut their hair like
ours… I could make some ca$h at home if I opened up a barber shop at home (what
do you think Zach, you wanna do it?) I’ll have to make sure I don’t forget to
put the clipper guard back on when I need to fix a spot… poor Roma, he got his
cut a lil shorter than he wanted. He’s only 14 though, he didn’t really care;
thank you Jesus.
16. Chopping down a field of corn with
scythes in Moldova was sick. I could definitely get used to that.
17. Nothing will ever compare to our farewell
BBQ in Moldova (by the way, when I say Moldova, I mean my first month there
(September)… I was in Moldova last month but we were in that crazy area called
Transnistria). We got some sausages to grill, but the main course was a meat
you would never guess. We BBQ’ed a beaver!!! We bought it from a neighbor who
raises them to sell for meat to restaurants; apparently beaver is a sought-after
beat in Moldova because it is so lean… and delicious! After driving back to the
church with my friend Caleb holding the beaver upside-down by the tail out the
door of the van, we all looked to our Pastor Vitali to show us how to kill it.
He folded under pressure though, despite his stories about growing up on a farm
and killing pigs etc. Sooooo, a Moldovan beaver is the first animal ive ever
killed… I won’t give details here, but if you wanna see the video sometime let
me know. I usually have horrible nightmare flashbacks when I watch it. Vitali’s
commentary makes it 10 times better than I could ever explain here. After
seasoning him and grilling him over the open fire pit, I temporarily got over
how horrible I felt for killing the poor little guy… cuz it was ridiculously
good. Try it at your next BBQ, ill give you some tips… I wonder if American
beavers will taste the same… don’t let them bite you, they have crazy sharp
teeth …I can still see him grillin me with his big orange fangs. It was an epic
day.
I
hope you enjoyed this 2nd edition of Wild N’ Out World Race Style.
By
the way, we are all good here in Malawi, just doing crusades to rural villages
and spreading that Jesus love to them. Its pretty sweet.
Peace
and God bless.
