I know this is insanely late but our internet situation is slightly more difficult this month. Enjoy 🙂
-Sometimes there is what you can only imagine to be a rat in the ceiling running back and forth and at some point it trips and creates a thud so loud you believe the ceiling is going to cave in on top of your head.
-Sometimes an older woman asks you to marry her grandson until she realizes you are not willing to have twelve children. At that point the request is immediately redacted.
-Sometimes your host drives a truck with the capacity to transport five people inside (himself included) and takes your entire team of five, plus an extra man, to a couple of churches a few hours away. Annnnnnd sometimes (or all the time this time of year) it rains off and on so you and your teammates, plus the extra man, squeeze seven into the equivalent of a Ford Ranger.
-Sometimes the public transportation motorcycles run out of gas while you are riding on the back and the driver either passes you off to another motorcycle or has you wait while he refills his tank.
-Sometimes when the host family brings in all of your team’s shoes off of the porch for the night one shoe does not make it and actually goes missing for about 24 hours.
-Sometimes you tell your teammates to hurry and get to the movie theater before the movie starts and one of your teammates insists she does not want to watch the previews. You have experience watching movies overseas and promptly explain previews are not really a thing. Your teammate does not believe you until she is several minutes late for the start of the movie.
-Sometimes you can hear every temper tantrum thrown by the toddler next door because there is no such thing as sound proof walls or personal space.
-Sometimes there is a church about 100 meters from your house that starts charismatic African worship at 0500 every single morning.
-Sometimes birds sit in the tree that holds one side of the clothes line and poop on your clean clothes.
-Sometimes one of the other teams on your squad has to come camp out in your front yard because their ministry site is infested with bed bugs (sexist bed bugs to be exact; they only bit the females).
-Sometimes a few days after said team leaves, you and your team begin having sitings of residual bed bugs (you owe us chocolate Team ****; you know who you are).
-Sometimes you state that you love a certain food item that was prepared for dinner and that item starts showing up at just about every breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
-Sometimes you place a fresh roll of toilet paper in the “bathroom” at 10:30 pm and by 0630 the next morning the roll is completely gone.
-Sometimes the neighbor kids sneak into your yard and steal your team’s shampoo, conditioner, and body wash out of the latrine.
-Sometimes you offer to help with dish cleanup and your host mom closely supervises you the entire time.
-Sometimes as you ride in the back of your host’s truck leaving ministry for the day all of the village children see Mzungus, come running, jump on the back bumper, and ride for half a mile while barely holding on.
-Sometimes on your first night at a new home you eat the entire spread placed before you believing it is dinner and finding out later on it was an appetizer for both the team and the family to share. Whoops.
-Sometimes your host, while translating your sermon, discovers your entire first name (as opposed to your nickname) and is absolutely astonished to the point that he stops translating and continues to ask “What? Really?”
-Sometimes when you are one of three people in a bed you decide after a few nights that sleeping in your tent on the ground in the front yard will ensure you get more rest so you spend the entire month tenting by choice.
-Sometimes the water is turned off for five to six days at a time without any notice whatsoever.
-Sometimes you and your teammate have impromptu dance parties while wearing the brand new One Direction trucker hats you jokingly bought two squad mates.
-Sometimes you seriously risk stepping on massive toads while making your way to the “bathroom” at night down a small dirt path in the front yard.
-Sometimes you discover a new species of insect that looks like a cross between a baby mouse and a cricket (not lying).
-Sometimes your host mom pours a mixture of paraffin and water all over her concrete floors to rid the house of possible bed bugs.
-Sometimes your host has to use your headlamp in order to read scripture because the sun has set and the church’s single lightbulb is not quite bright enough for his middle aged eyes.
-Sometimes an entire sister church of about fifty people (mainly women and children) escort you and your team to the squatty potty out back and stand there until every person has peed.
