1. Your team carries 10-12 ginormous jugs of drinking water at least 3 miles total back to the missons house.
2. The place for water to shower, cook, and wash with is at a water pump AKA the place you can get an arm workout.
3. You are in the rural part of Africa two months and then in the urban setting for one month and its different in every single place.
4. You drive two hours once a week from the village your ministry is located for the sole purpose of finding wifi and buying your groceries for the week.
5. When you are trying to travel somewhere and your ETA doubles. Special memories involve the 12 hour bus ride that became 24 hours and waiting 5 hours for a combi to actually start moving some of us to South Africa.
6. A local has to teach you how to properly hand-wash your clothes.
7. You watch 3 female lions and their baby cubs try to hunt wildebeests in the wild.
8. You witness stunning sunsets that remind you of your home in Kansas.
9. You meet some of the most warm, loving, and hospitable human beings in your entire life.
10. You try walking back on the dirt road to get something you forgot at the missions house and have to turn around to run back because there is a troop of giant, aggressive baboons having social time in the middle of the road.
11. You find a baboon raiding the camp kitchen.
12. Your local friend and yourself misunderstand each other’s English because the inflections are very different.
13. You eat sudsa, ensema, or sadsa which is all the same African staple maize meal.
14. In the middle of the night with your headlamp strapped tight to your head you go to the squatty potty outhouse and something pounds down on your back and shoulders as you leave. You realize the bricks of the toilet just fell a part on top of you. You broke the toilet at midnight.
15. The stars are brilliantly bright and indescribable.
16. Most locals no matter the age are open and some even are eager to have a conversation with you whether about Jesus or the weather that day.
17. You look into the sweetest eyes of kids and experience the wild joy of them.
18. You get caught in a torrential downpour that lasts 5 minutes.
19. You fit about 19 people in a combi (basically a giant white van) that is only supposed to fit 12.
20. There are no lines. To anything. Ever.
21. A herd of adorable, overly excited children follow you around the village shouting your name “Auntie _____” or mzungu.
22. You don’t know what’s happening half the time but it’s happening.
23. You end up in hundreds of selfies. At times, they are strangers.
24. You meet people that take their education seriously and want to learn as much as they can.
25. You wear and sweat in the same long skirt multiple days in a row without washing it because it’s 1 of 2 that you own and its required every day due to cultural expectations in the Malawian village.
26. You find yourself a part of an African dance party. Some even lasting for hours at a picnic that is blaring music out of a car which then dies because of said dance party so you all have to push it back.
27. Locals want to touch your hair or skin. Especially children.
28. You lose your breath trying to climb the path on a steep hill in the woods to get to ministry in the morning.
29. You meet people that are living your dream. A family that lives in the bush that are wildlife management director/veterinarian who moves populations of elephants, rhinos, giraffes, bushbuck, all the African animals for a livelihood. Or the Zimbabwean/American couple that owns acres upon acres of gorgeous land with a Christian camp bringing a multitude of children closer to Christ.
30. Men ask you to marry them through the window of the bus.
31. You must sometimes pay for toilet paper or bring your own in order to use the squatty potty, stool, or Western toilet. Or you use the restroom on the side of the road. Literally in a bush.
32. You find people that are always willing to help you and be a guide to you.
33. You eat a freshly slaughtered goat for Christmas lunch or pluck the feathers of the two chickens your teammates killed for dinner.
34. You stumble upon the strangest most interesting insects and creatures.
35. You sound silly trying to pronounce the people’s unique, elegant names. I have met some Pauls, Davids, Chrises though.
36. You jump off a bridge behind one of the greatest wonders of the world.
37. Your teammate plays a game barefoot and contracts horrible parasites (hookworms) in his feet for weeks and can’t walk.
38. You miss a lot of the human beings you met while in Africa whether old, tiny, or your age. Sometimes you have tears when you have to leave them behind.
Africa, I looked forward to you from the beginning and you will forever have a place in my heart. You’ve brought many meaningful moments but also adventurous and hilarious encounters!
