1.
At the end of your project,
you visit the ocean and the beach is deserted, save for your team and several
dozen UN Troops on their break.
2.
You show your Mom the
location of your next project trip on Google and she responds with “Whaaaaat,
that’s right next to Pakistan!”
3.
You travel far into the
African bush only to be greeted by a middle aged man who walked 30 minutes
because he’s never seen a mzungu (white girl) and he heard you were coming to
town. Upon introductions, he asks if he
can please have the experience of touching a white girl’s arm.
4.
Upon exiting the Port Au
Prince airport in the midst of all the mayhem, a local porter comes up to your
project leader, slaps him on the back and says “Hello, my friend!” because he
actually does remember him from trips past.
5.
The sight of security
guards with an AK-47 no longer surprise you.
6.
When meeting a village
woman in the rural reaches of Uganda who insists on trying to tell you many
things, none of which you understand, you’re first reaction is to respond in
Hindi (even if you happen to know less Hindi than Luganda).
7.
WASH, DART, and NGO are a
part of your everyday vocabulary.
8.
No type or condition of
toilet will ever surprise you again.
9.
You’ve eaten things that
would make that travel health nurse cringe, and at times it’s best just to
close your eyes and pretend it’s chicken.
10.
Your friend in another
province casually mentions that a family in her church adopted some Haitian
orphans and you happen to have been to that orphanage (and are quite excited
when you find that out!)
11.
Most people have never
heard of most of the places you’ve been.
12.
You get tired of explaining
to people that Africa is not just one big country.
13.
Home will never be quite
the same. Once you’ve been, and been broken, “home” becomes a relative term.
14.
You know you’re almost a
local when after being in the African bush for a few days your boda
(motorcycle) driver comments on just how dirty you are.
15.
You have eaten a mountain
of rice for breakfast and drank 10 cups of chai in a day and loved every minute
of it.
16.
You have met an orphan in
North India who knows more about American pop culture than you do.
17.
Some random and unrelated
guy you met in Uganda over a year ago remembers you for the toilets you
designed.
18.
You visit a remote village
to complete a survey and they butcher their rooster for you and proceed to sit
and watch you eat it.
19.
You try to explain to the
local you’re staying with just what it is you are doing when she asks you why
you spend all day in “the bushes” walking around with weird looking survey
equipment.
20.
You find creative ways to
describe sewage systems in order to find one that works for the translator. In the meantime the locals looking back at
you can’t contain their laughter for the poor white girl who is standing at the
front talking about such things as toilets in public. In the event they aren’t
laughing, they are offering their own toilet word suggestions for the translator.
21.
Being woken up by roosters at 5 AM (or 2 AM)
is a regular occurrence.
22.
You sent some extra money
for the family of your Compassion child, after which she wrote you a letter to
inform you they bought a cow, and you got to meet that very cow.
23.
You’ve stayed in a hotel
that has bats in the ceiling (and I’m pretty sure you all know how I feel about
bats).
24.
You come home and are at a
loss to describe to people much of what you’ve seen.
25.
You will never be the same
again.
