Some goodwilling advice for volunteers before departure
...and shortly after arrival. (upon my experience, and the things I screwed up)
1. Get some sleep before you leave. You might partyhard all week before leaving home, thinking you can get some rest at the place where you end up, but you won't. For a long time. Period.
2. Don't worry if all of a sudden all of your friends and family start to behave strange. Like: they're angry/sad/passive agressive/overly attached/etc. It's their way to get over the shock that you're leaving them behind.
3.Try to do things in advance. There will be a ton of things to do (like last minute "f*ck, I forgot my health insurance card has expired" or "I won't be able to buy my favourite food/cosmetics/drink/etc. in my destination country so I'm shopping my ass off to get these a.s.a.p." or "I still need my contract/passphoto/whatever for my coordinating organization") so to help yourself, try to pack your stuff a week before leaving.
4. If you are taking a flight to your destination, know your limits VERY well. Unpacking rapidly 1.9 kg from your baggage at the airport check-in is really not cool. Leaving behind nice clothes and shoes even worse.
5. Still some advice for flight: Leave your laptop/liquids/boarding pass on top of your hand baggage, because you'll have to take it out at least 2 times for security check. Otherwise it will earn you some less-than-nice looks and comments from the people in the row, who are extruding behind you while you fish these things out of your bag.
6. Try to be mentally awake when you first meet your coordinating/hosting organization. They will say plenty of really important stuff, especially on your first day. You might also have to decide/talk about your own goals, so you gotta get it right.
7. Drink and eat enough, even on your first day. Within all the wuthering storm of information it's easy to forget that you are an earthly being, who can't live on new info itself.
8. Be very honest about what you can't eat. Dishonesty=diarrhea.