You Know You’re a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Africa When…

1. Walking around holding a roll of toilet paper seems like a completely normal thing to do.
2. You have unlimited internet access but no water for half the week.
3. Sitting under a mango tree watching the goats graze counts as a productive day.
4. You stop looking at your watch, even though you wear it every day.
5. You start buying bras with the primary criterion of their functionality as phone and cash holders.
6. You stare when you see a white person you don’t know.
7. The length of time it takes you to walk to the tar road is wholly dependent on how many people happen to be in their yards along the way.
8. Knee-length hemlines are shocking but toplessness is not.
9. Taking home a bag of 50 avocados on public transportation doesn’t strike you as problematic or inconvenient—even if you also have two weeks’ groceries and an overnight bag with you.
10. 2 weeks, 3 provinces, and 3 changes of clothes in a small backpack seems about right.
11. Seeing a movie in a theater is a good bargain, buying a book is an unthinkable expense.
12. $15 is an extortionate price for delivery Indian food.
13. $4 is an extortionate price for a cocktail.
14. You have come to realize that the monkeys in the parks play roughly the same role as squirrels in America, but persist in taking pictures of them anyway.
15. You are considered the preeminent expert on professional wrestling despite being able to count your WWE viewing sessions on one hand.
16. There is a rooster you would like to kill, if only he weren’t dangerously close to your size.
17. You have thwarted a guard dog by scratching it behind the ears.
18. You are outraged whenever the fare for a 30-minute taxi ride goes up 30 cents USD.
19. You are not outraged whenever your 30-minute taxi ride takes 2 hours.
20. You can identify an otherwise unmarked stretch of road by the pattern of potholes.
21. You have had extended and positive conversations about the bouquet of a $3 bottle of wine.
22. One of the more exciting parts of returning home is finding out what species of insect has decided to invade your Brita filter this time.
23. When buying clothes, you think, “How hard would this be to wash in a bucket?”
24. You have come to expect two weeks vacation every three months.
25. The fact that Pepto Bismol turns vomit black is a standard and essential element of your knowledge base.
26. Showering every day seems like a decadent vacation.
27. Though cognizant of being the worst dressed person in your village, you don’t care.
28. You live in an almost constant state of existential angst about whether or not you are driving on the wrong side of the road, no matter which side you happen to be on.
29. You double up on words beyond the standard “sharp sharp” and “now now,” so that such phrases as “soon soon,” “fast fast,” “long long,” and “hot hot” are part and parcel of your everyday vocabulary.
30. If you had to choose between whether you would rather lose your passport or your plug adapter, you really might choose the passport.