Welcome to WorldRace Reality, brought to you from the comfort of my sleeping pad. Truth is I’ve spent A LOT of my time on the Race so far sleeping on this pad. It’s almost more comfortable than I anticipated. Over the last two months I have had the privilege and honor of putting my sleeping pad to good use. We’ve slept on the floor all but 12 days since I’ve left for the Race. AND do you know what else sleeps on the floor besides us? Bugs. Lol. You never know when you’re going to wake up to a cute little cockroach crawling towards you. 

Anyways, I’ve created this blog so that my whole experience can feel a little bit closer to those of you sitting at home. I’ve one thousand percent enjoyed my experience so far and wouldn’t change anything about it. Yet I think it's worth mentioning the not-so-glam of this journey. So continue reading for a little more humorous commentary as I make mention of the behind-the-scenes that we experience. 

It’s official, I loathe dogs. Okay, not entirely but for sure more than I did before I left the States. Both here in Nicaragua and in Costa Rica almost everyone has a dog and unfortunately they are often not friendly. The main purpose of having dogs here is for property protection and alarm. Most of the dogs that we’ve encountered aren’t actually as vicious when we get on their side of the fence, so that’s good! At night, the dogs are on the job for sure as they are almost a constant sound as we lay our heads on our half sized pillows. We’ve had dogs on-site at all three of our ministry locations and although they do bark, they have all been kind to us! 

Okay this one is hard to take, I’m still not used to it: cold showers. They’re the only option. Honestly, I thought I’d get used to it but after two months, I still dip my toes in EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. 

On our travel day from Costa Rica to Nicaragua, our ETA accounted for us to have an eleven hour travel day. I really enjoyed the first leg of the day. I've found bus rides to be a great place to process all we’re learning, work on writing pieces, take in the beauty of each country and even read a few pages in the book I’m working on reading. However, once we hit the border, our eleventh hour passed before we were even let into Nicaragua. It came down to a mis-step in the paperwork process. Everything was fine and we even had access to the big W, Wifi! Lol. We arrived at our ministry around one in the morning and called it a day after a nineteen hour endeavor.

You might not believe me about this next one but personally and fortunately at this point it’s only been something I’ve witnessed (Thank God): Stomach Problems. You can fill in the blanks I’ll leave on this one, but it has to make mention because most of the time at least someone out of the twenty of us is dealing with this reality. 

Sometimes you sign up for adventure days yourself and other days your host plans them for you. We’ve only experienced the latter. It’s had it’s perks as we’ve visited a few pools and a few lakes. However on one of these adventure days we experienced more of an adventure walk. We walked over two hours to a swimming pool and DO NOT ENTER lake. It was a beautiful day and many GOOD memories were made but it was for sure different than our initial pool day adventure expectations. 

The very obvious yet one of the most endearing parts of this trip is the language barriers. It’s amazing how little you need to know a language to make conversation, share stories and relate to another. I’ve loved the relationships I’ve made in both locations despite the challenge of language. Honestly, I think it might make the relationships that much sweeter as intentional work has to be put into the relationship. I’ve been learning a ton of Spanish and would seriously consider my Spanglish pretty good at this point. 

This one will for sure surprise you if you know me well, that’s why I saved it for last. Laundry Day. We’ve had our laundry done for us a few times but over all we are using washboards to do laundry. I know what you’re thinking, Sav is cringing every time. BUT actually I’m not. I do my laundry a few times a week or give it a good ol’ scrub in the shower if needed. Doing laundry is one of the few times I get to do something for me throughout the week. It’s also one of the only times I get to be alone throughout the week. I’ve learned that the slow lane of laundry is kind of enjoyable and reduces the number of clothes I need to wear in one weeks time. Lol. Maybe someday I’ll reduce my closet size BUT it’s not today.