Here we go! The blog y’all have all been waiting for!
GRAHAM + WHITNEY = GRATNEY!!
^Graham and I bought matching shorts in Nepal. They were quickly deemed “Gratney shorts” by the squad. 🙂
I’ll start from the beginning…
At training camp back in July, Graham and I were assigned to lead an activity. Instead of a typical dinner one night, they set up a foreign market type of scenario. There were several tables of food with various nationalities represented, the staff were playing characters. There were gypsies, beggars, thieves. There was loud music, police, crowds. There was a foreign exchange counter. Graham and I were given a large sum of fake money and we were told that we had 1 hour until the market closed.
We quickly gathered our squad and asked them to pair into groups of 8. Calculating that there were 44 of us, we split the money into 5 piles plus some to group with ourselves. We assigned one leader to each group and gave that leader the group’s money, informing them of the made-up conversion rate. We told them they had an hour, probably 45 minutes at that point, to exchange their money, buy, and eat before the faux market closed.
Graham and I took on separate roles. He helped distribute money and guide people on how to convert the money. I went around to each of the groups, asking to make sure they were exchanging and buying and eating, now that they only had like 20 minutes left.
In the end, someone probably got ripped off by the foreign exchange, confusing them about the rate. Someone got their camera snatched by a fake runaway thief while taking pictures of the market. Someone spent all their money on the tempting US goods: Oreos, M&Ms, Cheez-its, when they should have purchased a real meal that is cheaper and more filling. Nonetheless, everyone ate. So I’d say it was a success.
We had a debriefing session with the squad to see how they thought Graham and I did. They all thought we handled a tense and stressful situation fairly easily and effortlessly. Yay!
And this is how Gratney was formed. A few days later, Adventures in Missions (AIM) staff approached Graham and me to lead the squad in Logistics. We both said Yes! – not even exactly knowing what this entailed…
^the Jesus Jewels practicing for our first flight
LOGISTICS is getting the squad from country to country. We handle passport issues, visa applications, bus/train tickets from one country to the next, sketchy border crossings, lodging for the entire squad when we arrive into the new country, and financial matters to pay for said visa fees, transportation tickets, and lodging expenses. Basically, we are Mobilizers. We are moving 44 human lives from one nation to the next.
^World Racers and their luggage. We take up space and most of the time we block walkways. Oops, haha
Also, we plan squad meetings that AIM calls debriefs. There are 4 debriefs on the Race. We have a debrief after month 1, 4, 7, and a final debrief after month 11 before we go home. What does Gratney do to plan debriefs, you ask? We look months ahead. We scour the internet for an affordable hostel, not to mention one that actually has the size capacity to house more than 40 bodies. We are on a strict budget and have to do a lot of “group discount” negotiating.
Imagine this: you have 40 people. You have reserved 40 beds. These beds are in 10 rooms. Each room has 4 beds. Who stays where? We are like a herd walking into a new hostel. These sheep need shepherding!! This is what Gratney does. We plan out who is staying in what room. We sometimes assign according to teams, but most often than that, we draw randomly. “Okay, ___, ___, ___, and ___, you are in room 107. ___, ___, ___, and ___, you are in room 204.” See what I mean? It’s a bit much, honestly. I mean, these people are adults. But really. Imagine just throwing out 10 room keys and having them bolt for the rooms. It would be utter chaos. It would not go smoothly, we would probably lose a key, and I’m sure someone would go unaccounted for. This is our life.
Here are some Gratney stories:
ATLANTA — Right off the hop, we had an issue. We were flying Delta from Atlanta to New York City then a Delta affiliate, Air India, from New York City to New Delhi. We wanted our bags to travel the entire way through. We did not want to have to leave security at JFK, pick up our bags, re-check the bags, and re-enter security. We only had a handful of hours for our layover, and it was lunch time! So we were trying to not pay for the checked baggage fees, because it was technically an international flight. For some reason, our flights were booked on two separate confirmation numbers: one going to NYC, one going to India (AIM books our flights, they just email Gratney the itineraries). So in the system, it didn’t look like an international flight. It looked like a domestic flight to NYC and then an international flight to India. Well, for international flights, you get a free checked bag. For domestic flights, you don’t. We tried and tried and tried and they would not budge. We ended up having to pay for each person’s pack to get checked. What a pain! Right away, we already spent hundreds of more dollars than we had in our budget. But we tried! Sometimes, you just have to do what they say, and we did. Rules are rules, I guess.
We’re in India! from Whitney Vines on Vimeo.
^Allllllllll of us spread out at the airport.
CAMBODIA — We made it to month 5 in Cambodia. For Cambodia, it’s visa on arrival. We knew this because we did research ahead of time. Also, we knew that month 6 for Vietnam, you had to apply for visas. Vietnam only allows for visa on arrival if you fly into the country, but we were travelling by bus. Land entries require a visa ahead of time. We heard from AIM that you can apply for Vietnam visas from Siem Reap, Cambodia easy. So Gratney mobilized the entire squad to Siem Reap for a few days. This conveniently allowed everyone to see Angkor Wat too! 🙂 Otherwise, not everyone would travel straight to Siem Reap. They would have travelled from whatever city/country they were in previously, straight to their city in Cambodia, without stopping in Siem Reap. Well, while the squad is gallivanting around Siem Reap, Gratney is working overtime. We landed in Siem Reap very late one night, woke up before the sun at like 4am to see Angkor Wat at sunrise around 6am. We toured a bit then went back to the hostel. When others get to take a nap because we’re exhausted, for Gratney, it’s go-time. We spent hours on research on the best way to get Vietnam visas from Siem Reap. And much to our dismay, we realized that it’s not easiest from Siem Reap as we had been told. That it needs to be done in Battambang or Phnom Penh. Goodness. So we collect everyone’s passports, go to the photocopy place to make copies of everyone’s passport photo page and Cambodia visa page (in case they need ID over the course of the month!). We collect passport photos for the Vietnam visa application. We prayerfully hand over all 44 passports and a bunch of US$ to our guesthouse owner in Siem Reap. Apparently they have a process of shipping the passports to an embassy and voila, it’s magic. Thank the Lord, it worked! We all got our passports back, Vietnam visas in hand. Yippee!
Bus nonsense from Whitney Vines on Vimeo.
^This is what World Race bus rides sound like……
VIETNAM — Trying to cross the Cambodia > Vietnam border with aforementioned visa, we had an issue. Turns out Vietnam changed their “category” codes at the start of the new year 2015 and the Vietnam embassy in Battambang, Cambodia hadn’t clued in to this yet. So, even though our Vietnam visas were valid (date-wise), they were invalid (category-wise). Was this extortion? Probably. Ugh. So here we are sitting at the border and the guard isn’t letting us in. He says we have to pay an extra $5 USD to get our visas switched. Argh. Quick monies exchanged, a second full-page visa sticker placed inside each of the passports (having one whole page taken up for a border crossing is a frustrating thing for us travellers who need the space for five more countries after this! and this border took up TWO!), and we were on our way into Vietnam.
MALAYSIA — We needed to find squad lodging for debrief end of month 7 (March, Malaysia). AIM has a sharing site called The Log where past squads and teams can post information about each city/country. For example, if you read The Log, you’ll quickly read about where to find the fastest internet, where to find the cheapest fruit smoothies, and which hostels to avoid (bed bugs ew). We found a hostel listed on The Log in the city we were going to hold debrief: Georgetown, Penang Island, Malaysia. Perfect. The user who posted this hostel on The Log said that they spent $12 USD (44.50 ringgit) per bed– what the what!!???? That’s way over our budget!!! How did they swing that with AIM’s approval??! That particular squad had final debrief there, so perhaps their budget was larger than typical. Our debrief budget maxes out at $10 USD per bed. (For all of you vacationing Americans reading this, I’m sure this sounds like an astronomically low number, where you would expect to find roaches, poking bed springs, and/or nasty mold yuckiness in the bathroom. You’d be surprised. These $10 hostels we find are actually pretty nice!!!!!! Comfy duvet covers, air-con [= Asian abbreviation for “air-conditioning”… obvs = Whitney abbreviation for “obvious”], friendly staff, rooftop lounges, a hip part of town. It’s perfectly safe and adequately nice.) So we wanted to stay at this particular hostel in Penang but knew it was outside of our budget. So I emailed them. I emailed asking their group discount rate (40 beds for 5 nights is big money, y’all! They’ll take it at a discount for sure. Discounted occupied beds is more profitable than empty expensive beds, ya know.) They emailed back offering 42 ringgit per bed (like $11 USD). Too much. I emailed back, politely letting them know we were looking elsewhere, that our budget was more in the 25 ringgit range ($7 USD). That’s actually a little low. But that’s how you barter, folks. They start high, you start low, and you find a happy medium. She emailed back asking if I was with the World Race, that they loved World Race teams and they want us to stay there. She wanted to talk over the phone. Graham and I met and decided to offer an agreement of 32 ringgit per bed (about $8.60 USD). That’s pretty close to the middle, and within our budget. Well, I called and the lady just started talking. She said that she wanted our squad to stay there so bad, that she was willing to give us the rate we asked for: 25 ringgit per bed (like $6.75 USD). Ahhh!!! YES! That is insane! The last squad who stayed there paid close to DOUBLE that! Now this frees up monies to use for fun extraneous debrief activities, or to make final debrief even more epic. Love it.
Airport shenanigans from Whitney Vines on Vimeo.
^Doing what we do best… getting in the way.
How did AIM know that Gratney would be good at this, that we would enjoy it? We asked at Launch, a few days before we left. “Why us?” They said that they watched us for the week at Training Camp. And they just knew. Of course sometimes they choose incorrectly and, turns out, one of their chosen Logistics persons does not handle stress well or the two partners don’t get along or work well together, yadda yadda. But Graham and I just jive. It works. Easy peasy.
Also, they knew I did this for a living. 🙂 At EY, I handled travel and expenses for a dozen accountants. That’s basically what I’m doing here. Resume builder, yesssssss. Mobilizing a few dozen young adults across 11 borders, continent to continent, providing means for food and shelter, and keeping everyone alive and well. Yep!
It’s been quite enjoyable actually. Everyone at AIM who works with us thinks we’re phenomenal, and that definitely feels good to hear. 🙂 Neither of us stresses out easily, neither of us are afraid of immigration officers, neither of us lose track of money or important documents or what-have-you. We manage well. We manage time well, each other well, and the squad well.
Logistics hats from Whitney Vines on Vimeo.
^Gathering paperwork and documents for China visas while waiting to check in at the Ho Chi Minh City Airport in Vietnam. Gratney IN ACTION! 🙂 LET’S GO! 😉
So, that’s pretty much it! There are lots more stories, but this is a glimpse. Being Logistics is one of my favorite parts of the Race actually. I was so unsure of coming on the Race to begin with that if I didn’t have Logistics, I may never have actually come! God knew this. 🙂 Also, if I was taken off Logistics at any point along the Race, I may have left early. And sometimes they do this, but they didn’t with us. God knew this. 🙂 Oh and the last few countries are ones I was excited about from the beginning. No going home early for me! I must go to the Philippines, Mongolia, China, and South Korea!!! God knew this. 🙂 He knew putting the heavy hitters at the end would keep me around. I am excited about what is to come. God is doing big things, y’all, good good things! God is so big and so good!!!
Next blog: MONTH 8 = THE PHILIPPINES.
(A special hello to Mr. and Mrs. Garvin, Graham’s parents! They have been waiting so patiently for this blog for 7 months!!! hahaha Hope ya like it!)
Thanks for reading!
byeeeeeeeeeee
