Amazing Race - Pointe Noire

Due to good timing I managed to be part of the the Africa Mercy Amazing Race for the second time! After doing so amazing last year (read: second last and not really amazing at all with our fair share of mishaps) I felt it only made sense to join again. And so the other weekend I devoted my Saturday to frantically running around Pointe Noire with my lovely team mates (Mercy's Angels), completing an array of random challenges.

Mercy's Angels

After donning our lovely team outfits found in the ever trendy boutique (read: the place people dump the stuff they no longer want when the leave) we were pumped and ready to take on the other teams. And so we hit the ground running, madly waving down the first taxi we saw. Which may not have been the best strategy as he was probably wondering what those crazy white girls running towards him wanted and if maybe it wasn't worth the money to figure out. But we managed in our small small French to point him in the direction of the airport, our first destination. We were pondering the exciting notion that maybe they were going to send us off on an airplane like the real Amazing Race, until one of us pointed out that perhaps the little amount of money they gave us wouldn't get us too far. In fact that challenge turned out to be finding some locals to pay us to shine their shoes.

Notice our lovely team outfits.

From that point on there was no stopping as we ran around from the beach, to the grande marche, to the fish market, to the Hope Center, to the craft market, to the soccer field, to the off ships team house. All the while sweating as we solved riddles, cooked an omelete, looked for various items, paddled a canoe in the ocean (which I didn't tip this year!), bought some fish, made a fire and cooked the fish, made a wood carving, played soccer with some local kids and caught some chickens. We briefly entertained the idea of "Guys what if we actually won this thing?!," which, while being way off base, proved that our morale was high. Though by the end of the day as we ran over to the very Amazing Race-esque mat at the finish line we quickly queried "We aren't last right?!" And no! We were not! Tenth out of fourteen, not bad for three girls who didn't really know the city or French. But we had a blast! So thanks Mercy's Angels for being awesome team mates! And who knows, maybe I'll be around for next years third annual Mercy Ships Amazing Race as well...?  

Shining the police man's shoes

Math. Takes way to much concentration.

Scored a hat trick!

Let's just say my wood carving skills leave a little to be desired.

Searching in the prickly bushes for chickens to catch.

Out on the choppy sea.

Hitching a boat ride across a "small river" which came half way up our wastes.

Our more-then-one-box-of-matches-smoked-fish-is-okay-right? fire.

Keeping it cool all the way to the finish line.