You know you are in Africa when……
1. There is a donkey in the middle of the street.
2. When the kitchen table is covered in dust 2 hours after you dusted and washed it.
3. A family of five rides on one moped.
4. You stop at a red light and everyone else drives through it as if it was green.
5. You stop at a red light and have people come up to your windows trying to sell the most bizarre items.
6. The power goes on and off repeatedly in one hour and that episode repeats about 5 times in the same day.
7. You turn on a light switch and have to wait five seconds before the light comes on.
8. Your feet swell and your body gets tingling because of the extreme heat.
9. Your car breaks down on any traveling trip from one country to the next.
10. A lizard runs along your wall.
11. Mosquitoes feast on you as you take an evening stroll.
12. You are driving and your obstacle course is to avoid the craters and potholes scattered in the dirt/paved street.
13. Your bike is your freedom.
14. You have to change your clothes throughout the day because you are soaked with sweat.
15. You can’t leave your cow meat in the fridge for more than two days because it will turn to a smelly green funk that will make you want to gag.
16. You have to disinfect your fruit and veggies by putting them in bleach before you eat them.
17. The only place and time you have clean feet is in the shower.
18. Goats, sheep and chickens roam aimlessly around.
19. Instead of driving on the right and left sides of the road, you drive where there is a path that is drivable among the puddles, potholes, trash, animals, mopeds, cars, people and more.
20. You light the stove and oven with a match, hopefully without burning yourself or catching anything on fire.
21. You have the internet up and running one minute and the next minute you don’t.
22. Your computer has a mind of it’s own. Does it’s own thing. One minute it works and the next minute it doesn’t.
23. Your eggs are dirty and you have to wash them before you eat it.
24. The sound of water dripping, means the water bottle is overflowing in the kitchen from filling up the filtered water.
25. Ice cream is an expensive treat. You pay by the scoop, the scoops are small and then you eat it with a teeny tiny spoon.
26. I’d bargain 5 minutes for buying a laundry basket for 1500 cfa.
27. Someone will chase me down to tie my skirt in a knot for me since it was getting caught in my back tire wheel.
28. You’d show up to a shop to buy something and have to wait for thirty minutes until the owner/worker shows up.
29. Your driver decides to not come back to drive you home and you have to wait two hours for another ride.
30. The lemons look like limes.
31. Instead of carrying things in their arms, people balance them on their head.
32. The traffic lights work occasionally. The rest of the time you just inch out hoping for a break in the traffic long enough to cross.
33. Almost every house or building has a djembe in it.
34. It is hot and just when you think it is hot...it gets hotter.
Well, there you go...34 Reasons when you know you are in Africa. (One for each year I have been alive).
Just on a side note...I wanted to share a God story of one day back in the very beginning of my trip out here. When I first came to Africa this summer, I went to Bamako, Mali before coming to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. In the beginning days in Mali, there were some lonely moments but God blessed me and a friend of mine during that time. My friend wrote it in her blog so I am just going to refer you to her blog. She does a nice job telling the story so it isn't worth me competing with the story telling. Just check it out.
http://nicolewilbur.blogspot.com/2012_09_01_archive.html
Well, take care for now!
Love you all,
Rebecca Oryniak
