We Get Knocked Down, But We Get Up Again: The Tale of Coming Home
- Emily Graves
- May 13, 2018
- 9 min read
I know this one doesn't have much to do about Africa, but traveling is a big part of getting to where you serve, so it's not something you can just leave out and hope you don't have to encounter. You get the good, the bad, and the ugly..but it's all a beautiful, beautiful journey in the end.
(Disclaimer: if you are not good with natural body functions, turn back now, this is not the post for you)
Alright, so where we left off!!! We got to "sleep in", so the workout squad worked out at 7:00AM instead of 5:00AM! What a treat. I quickly realized that I had given my shoes to the donation bin and actually had 0 clothes to work out in, soooo I journaled and cheered on my fellow workout buddies. All good things must come to an end, ya know? We had our last breakfast together as a group, talked a little bit more about how to transition back to the states, did roll call ONE LAST TIME (just kidding we did it like 4 more times through this one trip back home), packed up all the vans, and started our long journey back home. The plan was to stop at a pitstop along the way and eat some lunch that was packed for us and then carry on until we got to Lake Victoria where we would eat at a pizza restaurant on the lake. Sounded like a pretty good plan, little did we know what we were in for along the way.
Let me just start by saying, there was absolutely no such thing as too much information on this trip. Everyone needed to be alert to what was going on in other people's bodies 24/7 because we were very close to each other at all times and just needed to know these things. Next, let me tell you, traveler's diarrhea is a real thing, & I'm going to say that maybe like 1/2 of us were blessed to have it during the trip. It doesn't turn into anything serious, but it is incredibly unfortunate to have on a trip where you are constantly on the go 24/7 (and when your bathroom is a literal hole in the ground). I was lucky enough to only have it the first 3 days and never during clinic hours, so thanks to the big man upstairs for that blessing, BUT some of us were not so lucky.
So when a fellow friend that you usually share a seat with in the vans wakes up on the day you are supposed to start traveling for like 32 hours & tells you that she thinks she probably has traveler's diarrhea...you know it's going to be a ROUGH day ahead. So naturally we had to do what all students love to do, go talk to their professor and her husband about how you may potentially have traveler's diarrhea and all other things that are going on in your body in great, great detail. (P.S. if you haven't figured out the friend by now, it's Gabby. I kind of got her permission to talk about this & she has repeatedly asked me when my last blog post was coming, so she kind of asked for it). Anyways, Gabby's traveler's diarrhea then turned into word vomit when she was trying to explain it to Patty and Rick because she got a wee bit nervous, but he gathered all he needed to know (chief complaint= diarrhea), gave her some pills, and we all hoped & prayed for the best.
Then it was time for take off and that's when the real fun began! Me and Gabby got first row of one of the vans just in case she needed to make a quick escape. All was going pretty well for the first part, not so great but not so bad. We then took a little stop in the middle of absolutely nowhere to go use the bathroom. & when I say bathroom I just mean that everyone found their respective bush and did a little squat and back on the road we went. (I told you, no privacy in Africa). Everything went well on that little stop and we thought we were on the come up!! Which is a play on words for what was going to happen next. Lunch time came and we stopped at a gas station to eat. I ended up eating Taylor's food because it was supposed to be gluten free but never was (unfortunate for her..stupid soy sauce, excellent for me). We had some extra shillings le
ft over as a group so we all went inside the gas station and grabbed some snacks and sodas. A lot of people went with potato chips. Even though we thought Gabby was on the come up, she stuck to just a banana and some chips, which in hindsight I am very thankful for. Everyone ate and talked about how excited we were to drive about 3-4 more hours, there were even some cute little kiddos who were entertaining us, but then, yet again, it was time to be on the road again! Duh, duh, duhhhh. I know you know it's coming.
STOP #3! I honestly am not even sure why we did this stop to be honest, but I am very thankful we did. All the vans pulled over at a gas station and naturally our van decided to go in the front where everyone could see us and where we were closer to the road aka village people and some goats. And this, my friends, is when Gabby was able to cross "puke in Africa" off her bucket list. But with so much grace and poise!!! She just popped out the van, walked to the side, and did her thing. Unbeknownst to her, the entire rest of the vans were sitting there watching her, along with all the village people and some goats, but it was fiiiine. I played Body Like a Back Road for her (I'm still unsure why I chose that song, I panicked), and she just laughed, finished puking, took some pills that superman Rick brought over, wiped off a little bit of vomit on her leg (and by that I mean I wiped it off...), and then we went to the bathroom and it was time to go again. Of note, this was approximately the time when Gabby proclaimed, "we need to get the heck out of Africa". Next stop: Lake Victoria!
We then decided it would be great if we tried to be horizontal in the van. It's amazing how many different positions you try to put your body in to get comfortable in these things. It worked well until her legs fell asleep, but by that point we were almost there anyways. We had to do lots of starting and stopping because the driving here is honestly like a game of Tetris with cars but you always lose. Plus the only type of ventilation you get in these vans is from the air you feel when you are driving fast and from people breathing on you, ergo we were getting no air because we were constantly stopping. So I hope this paints a vivid image in your head of all that was happening. Needless to say, Gabby was not the only one who ended up vomiting in Africa. We were so close to the place we were going to eat and I felt great about that because I could just sneak away and do my thing, but of course parking took FOREVER. And then someone, who was now feeling great after doing what she needed to do, decided it would be great to pass out DEET wipes to everyone in the car!!! I'm unsure of how familiar you are with the smell of deet wipes, but when you are extremely nauseous and slightly losing consciousness, the smell is equivalent to your worst nightmare bottled up into a scent. It's like the people making them have competitions to see how much repellent they can fit onto a tiny slip of napkin. It's unbelievable. And I know what you are thinking, "WOW, after all you did for Gabby when she didn't feel good and this is what she did to you?!?" YEAH, I KNOW RIGHT. Such betrayal. (just kidding, Gabs. Slowly working on forgiving you). Anyways, did my thing and it was time for pizza on Lake Victoria!! (Sidenote: Scarlett may have also thrown up at this point..it all kind of runs together, but there were 3 of us at dinner who did not feel the best we have ever felt so they kind of lumped us together at a separate table with a few other brave souls, shouts to Taylor, Drasti, Nick, and Abby).
The views were beautiful, the company was grand, the weather was nice, all was well. Me and Gabby did what anyone would do once they have thrown up a few times, we ordered 3 pizzas between ourselves and Nick. Duh. In our defense though, we only ate 4 pieces each.... Nick had 10 and still didn't throw up, so that's pretty impressive. We stuck around this restaurant for quite some time. They had live entertainment, and by that there was a worker's little girl who loved us and would not leave us alone even after I admitted that I had thrown up. We took some pics where we looked like what you might imagine someone who had had the day we had to look like...which is not great. & then of course the high of having all the pizza slowly started to where off and our bodies were back to being not so great. It was awesome while it lasted. No regrets. (Okay, maybe regret the last piece of pizza a little).
We saw lots of monkeys that just liked to chill all around the restaurant, & a man would walk by with some food to give them. (Rated PG-13: the monkeys here had actual blue balls!!!! And if that doesn't elevate your mood after a night of puking, I honestly don't know what would).
Anyways, the amount of moths at night was unreal and I hate moths because they just remind me of Silence of the Lambs & I am not about it. So that also increased the nausea. Great news though! Once we escaped all the moths and I threw up once more, we were only like 20 minutes away from the airport! We finally made it and carried all of our stuff through about 17 security checks and realized quickly that there was still no air conditioning. We took a shower (wiped ourselves down with some wipes and changed our clothes) and got ready for our first plane ride of many.
I honestly can't tell you much about the first 8 hour plane ride because I drifted in and out of consciousness, but I can tell you that having your seat beside the bathroom is THE WORST, especially when you are nauseous if you catch my drift. Which I caught a lot of people's. But everyone survived and we made it to Amsterdam!! Our first thoughts were to get food because no matter how many times we were going to throw up, we always thought about food. So we had a place that was similar to Atlanta bread company but Amsterdam style and then we went back to our fave mini pancake place!! How you know Gabby really doesn't feel good: 1) she stops talking 2) she doesn't eat the mini pancakes and Nutella. It 'twas a long and winding rode for Gabby girl.
Flight #2! This one felt like it was about 15 hours long, & honestly I don't even know how long it was because it kept going up. I think maybe 10? I watched Deadpool for the first time and it was pretty good! & yup, that's about all I did. I looked through my pictures for a while because it was unreal how much I already missed Uganda and its people. When we FINALLY got to Atlanta, it was time to go our separate ways with some of the team. Gabby assured me she would stay alive and be okay despite whatever was happening in her body at that time, & she (surprisingly to literally all of us) made it on her flight to Chicago! It was sad and I'm kind of glad I was so tired and weird feeling & everything was happening so quickly so that I wasn't an emotional mess. Our layover wasn't too long and we were finally on our way to Charleston.
Flight #3! It was only a 40 minute flight so by the time we got in the air it was time to come down. My parents came all the way from Aiken to pick me up from the airport probably because they were just really happy I survived and also because they are the best. I said my goodbyes to the rest of the squad and it was time to go home!!! (after eating some delicious crab cakes, of course) I also refrained from telling my mom how many times I had thrown up in the past 24 hours...so if you are reading this, I'm sorry mom but I feel fantastic now!!
It's currently 4 days after coming back and I still can't get over how incredible the whole journey was. As weird as it may seem to say, I think our bodies were actually getting mad at us for leaving. At least that's what I like to believe anyways. My heart wasn't so fond on the idea either, but I wouldn't change any part of it & I'm so lucky to have been apart of this trip with these people and the people we served. I'm a happy little gal with full intentions of going back in the near future. So get ready for that blog 2.0, because it will happen!! & if you have read all of my blogs, thanks!!
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