I felt that this was a day that was worth documenting.  To me, this was a day that epitomizes what life in the Peace Corps is like.  It was about 50 degrees and cloudy/rainy.  I started the day by walking roughly four miles to the royal kraal for a community meeting.  I sat for two hours in the community center, a building with a roof but no walls.  It’s perched on the top of one of the tallest hills in my community, the biting wind blowing straight at us the entire time.  The meeting was on a very interesting and worthwhile topic (sex and gender-based violence in the community).  However, it was all in Siswati which meant I sat there for two hours, shivering and completely oblivious to what was being said, except for the rare times that what of the women next to me so graciously translated.  I then walked another mile back to the tar road to catch a taxi to town.  About half way there, my whole foot suddenly felt like it was on fire.  I ripped my shoe off and found the culprit, a bee stuck in my shoe!  Bees here must be different from bees back home… or maybe it’s just been a while since I was stung because my fingers started tingling, my heart started pounding, and my foot hurt so bad that I couldn’t put any weight on it.  Just then, I saw a taxi approaching, flashing its lights at me (its way of asking if I wanted a ride).  I flagged it down and staggered over to it, all the passengers inside staring at me the whole time.  By the time I got in to town, the pain had let up enough for me to walk, and I was no longer afraid that I was having some kind of deadly allergic reaction to the bee venom.  I had two hours to kill before a meeting at the local children’s home, so I spent almost the whole time eating food.  I feel like all I do here is eat.  I spend almost all my money on food, and I’m still hungry… all the time!  I finish eating, and I just want more food.  I’m really not exaggerating on this point.  I have always liked food.  Even back home, I ate.  But here I eat a ton.  I calculated it and, on average, I walk/jog 30 miles a week, some weeks more.  It is a constant battle trying to get enough calories into me on a Peace Corps budget.  While making my way around town, I was proposed to five times by five different men, which is really the norm in my town.  Finally, I sought sanctuary at the Children’s Village an hour before my meeting, cold and tired of being harassed.  My meeting was VERY successful!  Worth everything I went through.  I have about three different projects I am going to be working on there (more on that later) and my counterpart there is very enthusiastic and seems to be really invested in her work.  I walked out of the meeting just in time to see my taxi back home pulling away.  I ran down the road, trying to flag it down.  My driver saw me, rolled down the window and signaled that he’d be coming back.  That meant that I had over an hour to wait…just as thunder rumbled in the distance and the skies opened.  As I made my way through the downpour, I remembered that I had left my laptop out in my hut…lying right under one of the spots in my roof that leaks.  I just prayed that it wasn’t raining hard back in my village yet.  There really wasn’t a point to obsessing over it.  My laptop ended up being fine, but that definitely isn’t a mistake I’ll every make again.  Luckily, there is a covered shed at the taxi park so I at least had cover.  I hunkered down, bought another snack, and stuck in my i-pod to wait it out.  About 30 minutes into my wait, one of the taxi drivers from a neighboring village (they all know me by now) walks up to me with a piece of paper.  I hesitantly turn off my music and read it.  It’s a love note…I figured as much.  “Dear baby.  You are beautiful.  I love you very much.  Please marry me baby.  I want to be your husband.  I love you baby.  Write me back your response.”  Some days, I would be amused at this.  Today, I wasn’t.  I told the man no about ten times before sticking my headphones back in and walking off.  Finally, my taxi pulls up.  By this point, there are about 30 people waiting for the one taxi back to my village.  No one wants to have to wait in the cold rain for another hour until the next trip so a mob scene literally ensues.  People crowd the door.  There is pushing and shoving.  Like I said, I really wasn’t in the mood.  I just stepped back and watched.  Luckily, my driver likes me, and technically, I had been waiting the longest of everyone.  He had my back.  He locked the door, cracked the window, and told everyone to step back and let me on first.  I gave him a thankful smile, climbed on and watched as everyone proceeded to try to pack as many people as possible into the 14 seats.  We made it back to the village, and I walked the 100 yards to my homestead in the pouring rain, only to remember that I forgot to stop at the local store to buy airtime.  It was thundering, lightening, and starting to get dark, but I REALLY needed airtime so I sucked it up.  I carefully navigated through the mud, puddles, and pouring rain to the neighborhood store where one of the men standing out front whispered that he loved me.  Believe it or not, I still wasn’t in the mood.  I just gave him a look, pulled up my hood, and took off for home again.  I plan to spend the rest of the night cuddled in blankets watching a movie.  It was a brutal day, but at the end of it, I have to say that I love this place more than ever.  This day was what being a Peace Corps volunteer is all about.  Enduring the not so pleasant, the endless marriage proposals, walking miles and miles through mud and rain for that one moment when you feel like you are actually achieving something.  That something is actually happening.  That your presence here is making some kind of positive impact, no matter how small it may seem at the time.  And I love it.