Time for Debrief!! We woke up Saturday morning bright and early at 4am. There were a total of 30 people living at Bella Goose so we all had to quickly pack our sleeping bags, and then finish the last minute cleaning of our bedrooms and kitchen space that we had gotten to use for the month. We then got to carry our big packs and all our belongings down the treacherous 7 stories. The stairs were super short and steep, and carrying your big pack made you just unbalanced enough that it was a stressful trip down to the ground floor. Each team rented a Roedang to take them from where they had been staying to the bus station where the whole squad would meet. By 7am, all 50 of us had arrived and were beginning to load up the bus. This was quite the endeavor as the bus wasn’t big enough for all of us and our bags, so we started stacking the big packs in the aisle. This meant that you had to crawl over a stack of bags taller than the seats, to get to your seat for the trip. It was so fun, it turned each seat into its own little fort for the bus ride!! When we were about 6 hours into the bus ride, the bus pulled off and let us get out for our lunch break. It took us to a cafeteria and the drivers gave us all vouchers for a free meal which was so nice. I was carrying over $6000 cash on me because I had to pay for our taxis, debrief lodging, and our debrief meals upon arrival so I took my bag with me into the bus stop instead of leaving it unattended in the bus. This then led to my wallet getting stolen at the bus stop. However, I didn’t realize it until later that night. Thankfully, I had the debrief money in a pocket, and not in my wallet. After our lunch we got back on the bus and drove the remaining 6 hours to Bangkok. Then when we arrived at the bus terminal, Logan and I went out to find our taxis. This was about ½ a mile away from where the bus had dropped us. We came back to the squad after we found the taxis and were able to have everyone carry their things to the vans. We then stacked up the big packs in our taxis and drove 2 hours out to our debrief location. By the time that we had arrived it was late, but our host, Mami, had made a buffet dinner for us! Our squad ate dinner while Logan and I toured the property with Mami, and made room assignments for the rest of our squad. Then we announced where everyone would stay and showed them to their rooms and were ready to go to sleep. That’s when I finally realized that my wallet had been stolen earlier in the day.
Our first day of debrief, my team met with our mentors and coaches to discuss how we had been holding up for the first two countries of the race. I am so grateful for my team. They are all the kindest and most beautiful girls! We have such a fun and humorous team dynamic that we ended up spending the whole debrief time telling our mentors about our inside jokes. Our favorite running joke is the term “mange” that we made up in Cambodia. One of the dogs that we lived with in Cambodia had mange, and over dishes one night we were playfully discussing if the dog inside of us would have mange. This then extended to us discussing who on the team would have mange, and who wouldn’t. It then evolved that specific actions would be considered mangy. Some of our best “mangey” moments were when Sophie washed her hair with a bidet. Another was when Clara wore the same socks for three days, and then went to get an ankle tattoo, so she switched shoes with Faith so that Clara could wear Birkenstocks. This meant that Faith then wore Clara's three day old socks which is considered very mangey.
That night we found out Mami had arranged for us to have a private concert from one of her friends. The man played the guitar while Mami sang. It was a very up beat song, but it was all in Thai so we couldn’t understand the words so we just stood around watching. Then Mami told us that we couldn’t watch anymore and had to join in. Ethan Kinzley, one of the racers on my squad, then went into the back of the truck where they were performing and grabbed a tambourine off the wall and proceeded to dance around with them, and the tambourine. My team felt well equipped for this moment since we performed a dance almost every weekend in Cambodia so we broke out into a Khmer dance that we had learned and showed the rest of the squad. After the Khmer dance, we then led everyone in the footloose line dance to the next song. Then Mami came down from the truck and made a huge dance circle with all of us and made sure that each one of us got a turn dancing in the center!
The whole Farmhouse we stayed at turned out to have so much character! Unfortunately my squad does not pair well with character. We had cute porches in front of the rooms we were staying in and people kept falling through the floorboards. Some unlucky people even fell through twice. There was also an incident where Ethan Kinzley had been sitting on a bench, and then stood up to give Raya a seat. As soon as she sat down, the whole bench broke underneath her, leaving her to sit on the floor. Paige sat in one of their homemade hammocks and the whole contraption fell from the ceiling. The handle on the door to our main meeting room fell off within the first two days. Connor broke his foot jumping. Lily also sprained her ankle jumping. Needless to say, were more destructive than we mean to be.

Being gone from our families during the holidays was super hard and made us all pretty homesick. With the time difference we weren't able to talk to much to our families before they would have to go to bed, or we would have to go to bed. This meant that our hospitality team on the Squad had planned a fun activity to keep our minds off everything at home during Christmas. We got into our teams, which have become our families, and had a giant gingerbread making contest. However in Thailand, they don't celebrate Christmas so there was no gingerbread available at the stores. Instead we used wafers and peanut butter to make our "gingerbread houses". We were judged on two point: design and structural integrity. Our mentors went to each team and rated the designs of each gingerbread fortress. Then it was on to the structural integrity portion. We took our fortresses across the street and lit off fireworks inside of the house to see who would last. No one won the structural integrity portion of the contest. At the end of the night, it was announced that my team had won the contest however, because we had the best design and part of our wall was able to be found after structural integrity test. My engineering degree really came in handy!

After we had debrief, it was finally time for me to deal with my stolen wallet, and more specifically my stolen passport that was in my wallet. Just to double check, I went back to the bus station to see if the wallet was returned, which it wasn’t. I then contacted the taxis and they also had not found a wallet. This meant that I had to take a trip to the Thai police station to report my stolen passport. I then arranged an appointment for the following day to get an emergency US passport at the US embassy. The embassy originally told me that I wouldn’t be able to get into Indonesia or France with an emergency passport, but every other country would accept it. After talking to my dad and doing some more research, we found that only the US and Canada would actually accept an emergency passport, which means that I would not be able to get to South Africa with the rest of my squad. I got to talk to my leadership team and mentors a little more, and then we determined that I would have to go back to the US to get a real passport. Thankfully my dad was able to book me a flight for the next morning, however my house was locked and my parents were in Canada with my brother, and his girlfriend on a ski vacation. This meant that instead of flying me back to Colorado so I could get a passport from the Denver office, I flew back to Vancouver, Canada where they were staying. Traveling back to the US meant that I left debrief at 3am the next day, got to the Bangkok airport at 5am, took off at 7am, and flew to Tokyo. From Tokyo, I flew to San Francisco, went through US Customs, and then flew into Vancouver where my parents picked me up. I then stayed in Vancouver for 36 hours, drove back to Seattle, then flew to Spokane where I spent New Years with my grandparents! From there I got to fly to Idaho Falls, see Jeremy, and then fly back to Colorado Springs. I arrived in Colorado Springs around 10pm at night and went immediately to bed. The next morning I had an 8am appointment in Denver, two hours away, to get my new passport. The appointment took 15 minutes, and I would have to come back at 2pm to pick up the new passport. I then drove back to Colorado Springs, repacked my big pack with new clothes, and drove back up to Denver to get my new passport, and then drove back down to the Springs. I got to have dinner with my parents and then went to bed because I had an early flight out the next day. I was exhausted the entire time I was home because I was traveling with a 14 hour time difference, but it was so sweet getting to see all my family and friends even if it was for such a short time!
My flights to South Africa then started in Colorado Springs, flying to Denver, then to Newark. The total flights had been so expensive that United gave me free access to the United Club. I had a 3 hour layover in Newark and got to hang out in the club and I decided that from now on I would much rather always fly with United Club. I then flew into Johannesburg, South Africa, spent the night at a hotel, and then flew to Port Elizabeth. Here, one of our hosts was able to pick me up and drive me out to the house my squad had been staying at for the past week! It was such a fun reunion. I hadn’t been gone for very long but I missed them so much and it definitely showed me how much I really really love being on the Race!

December 24 - January 5 2024