What every traveller should do in Africa

To do list for JFs:
Drink coke/fanta from a glass bottle
Learn how to wrap a chitenge (woman’s cloth) around your waist without it falling off within 30 seconds.
Wash yourself without the help of pipes and gravity. I.e. use a bucket of water
Use an outdoor latrine, which involves squatting over a hole in the ground and covering the hole afterwards. (extra points if you use a leaf for toilet paper)
When using public transport to travel from one city or another, gleefully get into the back of that pick-up truck because it may be the only thing available.
Draw water from a well and carry it at least 1km on your head or wheelbarrow. We are talking at least 40L.
Take a picture of a sunset and sunrise.
Dance to authentic local music
Attend church at least once, if not every week. It’s quite the experience.
Brush your teeth with a cup of water
Start your own fire with twigs and a match
Hang a mosquito net
Get ripped off in the market at least once. We all know what that object was, how we paid, and who we bought it from, so don’t be shy.
Laugh out loud with someone who you cannot converse verbally with
Wash your clothes by hand outside in a bucket
Cook Nsima (or in my case Bughali)
Find a child who sees you, starts crying, and runs away because they’ve never seen a “Muzungu” (white person) before.
Order food from a restaurant in the native language of your District.
Bring your bicycle to the mechanic
Run out of units on your phone (tsk tsk)
Harvest food, in my case sweet potatoes, for others, corn. Cook it, eat it, and wash the dishes.
Wash your dishes outside.
Eat with your hands, (some might call this playing with your food)
Watch a game of football. And by football I mean soccer.
Play with a group of at least 15 children at one given time
Go to an internet cafe
Use solar power, because electricity is not available
Swing in an open body of water, in my case lake Malawi (because we know Schistosomiasis is just a myth....right?). As a nurse, I don’t advise.
This list is only a rough draft of some of the things I've been doing, and I hope to compile a much larger one after spending some quality time with my other Jfs at the mid summer retreat!
I have found internet access in town that supports my blog, so stay tuned for more blogs this week! My laptop died and all my blogs are saved on it, so once I have it both electricity and internet, (very unusual) I will post the ones I have written!
Karina