17. Once a week, go to an ethnic restaurant, then when you are handed the menu, close your eyes and point to something. Eat whatever you are served happily and graciously.
16. At midnight, go to the nearest country club, then practice dropping your trousers and taking a leak in the golf holes without spraying on your clothes. Hole-in-one!
15. Buy a soundtrack of mosquitos buzzing and play it on high volume at night in your room while you crouch underneath your mosquito net.
14. Volunteer in a kindergarten. Tell them stories one sentence at a time, giving room for a “translator.” Tell the kids to point and yell “Mzungu” every time they see you.
13. Live out of your backpack for a month, sleeping on couches and rotating between all of your friends’ houses.
12. Have one-on-one’s with all your closest friends and give them feedback.
11. Go on 8-hour bus or car ride without using bathroom. Use a waterbottle or empty chips bag if necessary.
10. While you are hanging out with your friends, insist that you need “alone time.” Then turn your back to the wall and turn your iPod up.
9. For a month, shower using only a bucket and a sponge and wash your clothes in the bathtub.
8. Gather all your friends and pack yourself into the smallest car you own, then drive for at least one hour.
7. Don’t turn on your faucet for a day. Every time you need to use water, fill up a bucket at your neighbor’s house, place it on your head, and carry it carefully down the street to your house.
6 Speak entire conversations in gibberish with your friends. Smile and nod, even if you have no idea what they are saying. 5. Go shopping, then refuse to pay the full price. Haggle with them until they give or kick you out of the store. 4. For a week, eat only rice and sauce. And no, you’re not allowed to use silverware.
3. Buy a coke at the store, then insist that they pour it inside a plastic bag with ice and a straw.
2. Volunteer at the local clinic and learn how to pick lice out of hair.
1. Buy all the crazy creatures from the nearest pet store, then release them in your home. When one of them runs across your feet, act like it’s the most normal thing to have in the living room. When the cockroaches start to multiply, host a family game night to kill them.
