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Published: July 25th 2009
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As most of you read this, I am sure you are sitting at a nice computer at your job (where you get paid twice a month...man, I miss that), or at your home while you´re in your comfortable surroundings. So, I thought I would indulge you all with my life current life: truck life.
I am on the “big yellow truck” with 24 other passengers, which consists of 4 couples, two single males and the rest, female. Estrogen Fest 2009. It is great to meet people from all over the world and learn about a different upbringing. Everyday, I am still hearing and learing new vocab words. We all speak English, but people from England speak a totally different language, using terms I have never heard of. “Have tea” = have dinner; “capsicum” = green pepper; “Sheila movie” = chick flick. The added accent adds another challenging level of miscommunication.
We take turns cooking meals for the entire group. Three people make a up a cook group once a week,make dinner, and breakfast and lunch the following day. We also have to come up with the menu and do the shopping. This could be challenging becuase we have
to fit in our budget and bargain with the locals if we are shopping in a local farmers market. We cook by fire for basically every meal. This trip is very hands on. We already had two “fire wood collecting” sessions. Making a fire is a lot of work. Maintaining a fire is even more work. When a good level of heat is reached, it still takes 2 hours after that to complete dinner...in the dark. We then sit in fold-out chairs around the fire, which by now has died, and enjoy our slowly cooked meal.
Doing dishes is interesting and took me a while to get used to. After we eat, we do our own dishes. The dish system is made up of three bowls/buckets: 1) just water to get the chucks off 2) soapy water to wash the dish 3) a disinfectant rinse made up of water and detol or savlon. Drinks always taste different and gross after being washed in detol. Ugh. Then we flap the dishes to dry. It can look silly having 25 people flapping dishes on the side of the road.
For traveling throughout 10 countires in Africa, I don´t feel like
Driving
This is when the truck only had 14 people. Now we have 25 and all seats full! we are on the road all too much. On days we are driving, our typical day is: wake up around 6:30, quickly eat breakfast, pack up your stuff, load it on the truck, and take down your tent. More times than most, you have to put away your tent while it is wet from the morning dew. Gross. Then we would drive for 4 hours, pull over and have lunch (sometimes on the side of the road or in a parking lot). The truck ride is a journey in itself. If you want your book that is two feet away from you, you´d have to ask others to hand it to you since getting up and attempting to walk amongst a full truck of people is near impossible. This typicall results in falling in someone’s unexpected lap. The ride is bumpy and is tough to read andwrite. Finally, we arrive to our next campsite before sunset. We never drive in the dark. I absolutely love the days where we have more than 2 nights in one place. It is so nice not having to be on the go all the time.
The cab of the truck is completely seperate from the back of the truck where we sit. There is a buzzer switch you push to communicate with the driver. One buzz is a photo stop, two buzzes is a toilet stop and three buzzes means emergency. When I say toilet stop, that means pulling over in a good flat area with bushes and trees. I think we have all seen each other´s butts at one point or another. When you have a “long call”, there are small gardening shovels for you to dig your hole. When camping in the bush, shovels are a must. Because the morning are early and rushed, we finally learned to pre dig your hole at night for the morning bathroom trip.
Truck life is something that you have to experience yourself to fully grasp. I can’t believe I have been doing this for almost 2 months. I am having a great time but will be ready to return to my life of cooking in a kitchen, using proper soap, using a dishwasher and most importantly, peeing when I want.
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