Big Jugs

I got big jugs. No, not those kinds of jugs. Obviously. I have big jugs of water that I carry up a steep hill and then down again — like, a mile total — every morning, in this land of cul de sacs and homeowners associations.

I start with two gallon jugs, which weigh 17 pounds together, and think it will be easy. But halfway up the hill I feel like the muscles on my forearms are gonna pull off my bones like Buffalo chicken wings. So. Much. Pain. I have to stop at every mailbox.

My God, I think to myself, if I can’t do this, how will I do Africa? In the fall, I am scheduled to leave for the Peace Corps in Uganda as an agribusiness specialist — working with farmers and families — and I’ll need to carry water there. For three miles. Every single day.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail, I tell myself.

Truth is, carrying water is the least of my worries. I’ve already been through an exhaustive medical clearance yet I know that most volunteers, including me, will still get sick.

Malaria sounds like hell, what with the fever and the runs alone in a hut with no running water or electricity, your only company scorpions and snakes.

That snail fever thing if you go in the lakes or rivers. You never get rid of that one.

And HIV/AIDS, of course.

It’s the mango fly maggots that almost feel like the deal breaker to me. Turns out mango flies lay their eggs in your wet laundry as it dries in the equatorial sun, and then those eggs…