Chapter One: The First Night I Thought I’d Made the Biggest Mistake of My Life

One October night, exhausted, I was ready to crawl into bed. Peace Corps rules required us to stay in our huts as soon as it turned dark for our own safety. Darkness came quickly, and evenings were usually quiet, except for dogs barking.

Suddenly, shouting erupted outside my hut. I had just turned off my paraffin lamp and was tucked under my covers. I could hear several men approaching my front door and bolted out of bed.

I slid open the window and peered through the metal burglar bars the Peace Corps had installed to keep us volunteers safe.

The drunk man was back, and his slurring was worse than ever. He was known to steal money from his elderly mother, who lived in a rundown mud rondavel beside mine. That poor woman crawled on her hands and knees as she could not afford a wheelchair. I would often see her slithering to the bushes a few feet away when she needed to go to the bathroom.

This time, several young men surrounded the drunk man, voices rising, all within a few feet from my hut.

The shouting turned violent. The young men knocked the drunk man to the ground and began kicking him. My heart started pounding. Shaka, the scrawny, pregnant dog belonging to my host family, barked frantically, and for a terrifying moment, I thought they were kicking her too. Then, the drunk man grabbed a brick from the pile behind him and raised it above his head. I froze. I was sure someone was about to be killed.

My host mother, Mary, came outside in her robe holding a flashlight. I had warned her previously that if the Peace Corps ever saw this kind of violence happening around my hut, they would extricate me from the village and place me somewhere else.

I decided to record the shouting on my phone as it was too dark to video the men. I might need evidence to inform the Peace Corps about my safety, so I stuck my hand between the metal bars and pressed the record button.

A woman nearby screamed hysterically while the men kept shouting. I recognized her voice as that of the disabled woman’s granddaughter. Only fifteen, she was also pregnant and lived in the rundown hut next door. Mary told me the drunk son would insult his mother before forcing her to hand over her pension so that he could buy booze.

I wished desperately that I could understand Sesotho. Ten weeks of language training, and I still could only speak the basics.

I shouted that I would call the police. The words sounded absurd the moment I said them.

There were no police here.

Maybe the village chief would show up.

The fighting went on long after dark and ended with the drunk man screaming in agony. Mary told me they had broken his arm, and she was happy about that, as it meant he would not be around for a long time.

I sat on the edge of my narrow bed, shivering from anger and fear.

With no one to talk to and no friends to call, a terrible thought crossed my mind: Had I made a mistake coming to Africa alone at fifty-eight, newly divorced, and thousands of miles away from home?

This is the opening chapter of my forthcoming memoir. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Reflection: Have I made the biggest mistake of my life?

Looking back now, that night wasn’t the most dangerous thing I experienced in Lesotho. It was the moment that I realized something about fear.

Most of the things we fear never unfold the way we imagine.

If I had packed my bags and given up after that terrifying night, I would have missed one of the richest experiences of my life.

Sometimes the scariest part of a new adventure isn’t the place itself. It’s realizing that what feels frightening today may be unfamiliar. Given enough time, fear often gives way to understanding.

Have you ever wanted to give up on the first day of something new?