You Know You’re In Peace Corps Africa When…

There are many of these around – and that tells you something.  Here’s another based on first hand experience…   Thanks to fellow PCVs – you get a broader perspective 😉  Read it and weep, laugh and wonder, “Just how nuts do you have to be to do this?”   Well – as Jimmy Buffett once said, “If we weren’t all crazy, we’d all go insane.”   Sooooo –

You know you’re in Peace Corps Africa when:

• “It’s so nice to take a crap on a toilet…”
• Your alarm clock (rooster) is now floating in someones stew pot.
• You’re known to the U.S. Troops here as “The dirty feet…”
• You leave a switch on at night so you know when the electricity comes on: you leap up at 2AM and plug everything in to charge.
• A veteran PCV admits to showering in his clothes so he can wash them at the same time.
• One of your most used phrases is “It’s another PCCF.”  (Peace Corps Cluster ****.)
• When you’ve dislocated your knee Medical says:  Just catch the bus in next week, we’re all on holiday.”  (Other than that PC Medical has been excellent.)
• Dinner table conversations cluster around shisto, diarrhea,  worms and malaria.

• Taking a cold bucket bath a luxury.
• You flush the toilet with your laundry water.
• You have laundry water to flush with.
• Your laundry water is too dirty/muddy to use in the toilet…
• You clean the toilet (latrine) with fire.
• You get locked in the latrine by a kid in your compound and climb out the top.
• You check to see if your eggs float before cooking them (a floating egg is a bad egg), then ask “can I still eat it if it floats a LITTLE bit?”

• Putting in your ear plugs is part of your nightly routine.
• Michael Bolten and Celine Dion are the en-route entertainment on the bus.
• Riding with chickens and goats is normal.
• You’ve named the mouse who shares your room.
• You can get shisto from your bathing water.
• You compare Mefloquin dreams.
• Being a Mef-head is a good thing.
• You eat bugs – on purpose.
• Termites ate your shirt.
•  “The termites ate my school fees” is a true statement.
• “Now-Now” means sometimes this week.
• Petrol comes in a baggie.
• You can hear Dolly Parton and the Muslim call to prayer at the same time.

• Tomorrow never ends:  Wa nen diki (Acholi for “see you tomorrow”) but could mean any tomorrow in the future.
• You have to fight the geckos for the shower.
• You smash a fly with your butt and think this is normal.
• You’ve learned to like hot cola and hot beer.
• You hear beeping outside your window and your first thought is… “Is it a bomb or a bug?” 
• You have a bucket of water by your bed to wash your feet – again – before climbing into bed.
• You use it (above) to dip your feet to cool down in the middle of the night when it’s still stiflingly hot.