Immediately into the terminal, a certain heaviness in the air, a thicker moisture. A faint, acrid odor. “That smell means it is beginning” I say over my shoulder. Shuttled quickly on unlit streets of Dar es Salaam to a gated compound, my group of 40 Peace Corps teachers breaks for sleep.

Unsure where the compound begins and ends, I start jogging in the night down a dirt road. Surely walls must enclose the entire compound? ¼ mile along, the trees on my left part, reveal a hulking, concrete skeleton that once was or was once meant to be 4 stories. There is no gate in sight, no retaining walls, no people, and the road is now unlit. The fence at the roadside has gone from rock mortar to barbed wire to underbrush. Time to turn around. Running back I glance left and a figure suddenly materializes. Dark as the night, wrapped in blackest clothe, only subtle navy stitchwork and the whites of eyes gave hint. The eyes are watching my jog, silently tracking, the body statue still. I must have run by this person not a minute ago, completely oblivious, believing the road abandoned. Jog on... Jog on...

This first night there is a certain taste to the air in Dar es Salaam. My nearest analogy is the scent in the Reptile House of Brookfield Zoo. Heavy, stale, moist, it becomes a presence. Gravity feels weightier.

Desperate for air, I throw open the window of my sparse, lonely single. Within minutes, a surprising buzz, and the discovery that my room in now swarming with company. I quickly pull the screen over the window. Silly me, I forgot about those pesky mosquitos. Thankfully my bed is decked in sumptuous bridal vale to keep the malaria out. Lala salama (sleep in peace).

Eyes fly open to mournful, plaintive wailings. A distantly broadcast voice welcomes Muslims and any other in earshot into a new day. As it rises and falls in measured, rhythmic pace, my watch glows 5:05. Even as the nearest voice ceases, other, more distant voices from other directions take up the call, rise and fall in their own right.