At age 52, Tulasi Shrestha, whose parents wouldn’t let her attend school because she was a girl, is finally learning to read. Shikha Gauchan, after receiving training on a computer, has vastly increased her business to foreign trekkers by promoting her guesthouse on Facebook. Children who once couldn’t pass the entrance exams to further their education have so excelled that the community built a secondary-level school to accommodate them.

The low lying banana boat picks up a passenger arriving from the airport and departs the small dock with the caution not to dangle a hand in the water. The reason soon becomes apparent, the eyes and rough hide of a ten foot crocodile surfaces several feet off the boat, then disappears in murky waters of the mighty, 3,540 km long Zambezi.

I joined Peace Corps knowing very little of what life or work would be like. Unlike some of my volunteer friends, I hadn’t dreamt of Peace Corps since I was little, and it was never part of some 10 year professional plan.