1. You’ll never wake up to views like this ever again
2. You’ll eat the tastiest food in the world, and then never be able to find it anywhere else
3. You realise things run on a different schedule and punctuality is relative
4. You’ll never go to the toilet anywhere like this again
Erin Lough / Via raleighinternational.org
5. You walk into any room and sit on the floor
6. You keep trying to take cold showers, but it will never be the same
7. All of a sudden it is socially unacceptable to wear the same t-shirt five days in a row… and to wash your hair once a week
8. You’ll always be looking for the snakes in the long grass
9. You once craved time to yourself, but you’d much rather be surrounded by people again
10. You can’t be this crazy with anybody else but your team mates
11. You still think it’s normal to have the same meal three times a day
12. You still try to talk to strangers on public transport... and occasionally invite yourself round for dinner
13. Going to bed at 6pm is no longer acceptable
14. Having a clean pair of socks is no longer a thrill
15. TV becomes dull – you don’t need a big screen to provide entertainment when you can create your own
16. You no longer wear makeup. And yes, you know you look more tired, but you’d rather not be around people that care about it
17. You no longer want to see all the tourist sites in a new country, you’d rather stay in someone’s home and be part of the local community
18. You’ll make new best friends, and then realise you live 3,000 miles apart
19. You realise that you have more in common with people that you met on the other side of the world than some of the people you went to school with
20. Friends and family think all you talk about is ‘that time when I was volunteering overseas’
21. Your friends will mock you for taking a gap year every time you talk about serious development issues
22. Everybody assumes that all you did was play games with children
23. You spent months planning, researching and fundraising to be a volunteer, yet people still accuse you of being a ‘voluntourist’
24. You spend way too much energy trying to convince other people to volunteer overseas
25. When you see problems you can’t help but think of ways in which you could solve them
26. You become obsessed with recycling and picking up rubbish
27. Development is more complicated than you ever thought, but you can’t stop thinking about it
28. You arrive with ridiculously high expectations of changing the world…
29. …but then realise you can make a difference in your own way
30. You become aware that there is so much we can all do; the only thing stopping us is ourselves
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