My first Day/Night

At the crack of dawn, Ben (our driver), Annie (the other Mporokoso PCV), and I loaded up all of our possessions into and on top of the land Cruiser and started a new chapter in my Peace Corps experience. It was weird looking at my temporary corner of the common room in our Kasama house before loading up our stuff and saying, "Yup, that's every single thing I own in this hemisphere. A couple bags, some groceries, pots and pans, and a mattress. Here we go." After nearly 4 hours on one of the worst roads in Zambia we finally reaches Mporokoso. We met the local Department of Fisheries agent, then I went to the market to buy vegetables and dried fish (for my dog), and then went to my house.

We got to my house around noon and unloaded all of my stuff. I got a quick hug from Ben and Annie, and like that they were gone. It was a fairly funny experience just because I turned around to look at my hut and just thought, "Well, here I am. Home sweet home right in the middle of the bush." I threw my portable speakers on, started listening to some Talking Heads and began unpacking. It's amazing how quickly it felt like home just by hanging a Hawkeyes flag, pictures of family and friends, and a couple snow boarding posters.

Not long after it started to get dark I realized how tired I was. I decided to knock off for the day and looked at my watch just out of curiosity and it was 7:00 pm. I felt like I was in 2nd grade again. It's amazing how late it fells when the only light you have is from a couple candles.

Shortly after I laid down to sleep, which I must admit was a bit spooky for the first night, I heard some movement in my hut. After some self motivation I got out my flashlight to investigate. Of course it was a bat. Since I sleep in a bubble of serenity, a.k.a. mosquito net, I decided to leave the bat to eat malaria-carrying mosquitoes. I eventually fell asleep but was awoken not too much later by a different kind of rustling. So I armed myself with a soccer ball ready for anything. With my headlamp on and my arm cocked back with ball in hand, I slowly crept towards the sound. Of course this time it was a mouse. This was no cute field mouse, though. This guy was one small step down from a rat. It ran away so I set up a trap for him. It didn't work that first night and he woke me up thrice more times.

That, in one large nutshell was my first day. Quite a new experience, but much fun.