Go with the flow

Go with the flow.  It’s my motto in Rwanda.   Go with the flow means:

1. You do what others are doing because you have no idea what’s being said.
2. On Thursday night, you’re asked to teach a seminar on Friday morning. 
3. On Thursday night, you’re informed that the seminar you prepared for Friday morning has been canceled, because the teacher in-service day has just become a regular school day. 
4. You just show up with no expectations about how you will get there, what will happen once you are there, or when it will be over.
5. You find out on Friday evening, that Monday is a holiday and there is no school.
6. You find out on Saturday afternoon that Monday is a holiday and there is no school.
7. You wonder, “Where are we going?” when the moto-taxi driver takes you to a familiar place but goes the unfamiliar round-about way.  Is he showing me off?  Am I his prized bright skinned rider?
8. You hold the communal motorcycle helmet on with one hand while you hold onto the moto-bike with the other.
9. You hope there is water when it’s brown and you need to flush it down.
10. The local government informs schools that they need to send all their teachers to a meeting in a few hours and while school is in session -  “Just give the students exercises and leave a few teachers behind to watch the 500+ kids,” they say.
11. Schedules are loose estimates. Things happen when they happen.
12. You always have 3 or 4 backup plans.  And you frequently use number 3 and 4.
13. When people are laughing, you assume it’s about you and it doesn’t bother you.
14. “Normal” is in a continuous state of change.
15. You give extemporaneous speeches or prayers.    
16. You don’t ask what it is, you just eat it.  
17. It can rain at any time, but if you wait a few minutes it will pass.
18. You don’t wonder where the amoeba came from or how you got it, you just accept the resulting dysentery as a part of life.
19. You spend several hours at the clinic while the nurse takes your information and vitals in the waiting room surrounded by all the other patients and the lab tech walks in and says “Was that your sample?”  and then proceeds to tell the nurse exactly what they found in your sample.  HIPAA violation?
20. People blatantly stare at you all the time, watching your every move and you don’t even notice.