Every Day a Miracle

My pale, Wisconsin skin glistens under the African sun. A stabbing itch on my back hip distracts me from the heat as I walk to our volunteer house. The needle-piercing pain won't subside, so I ask my friend to look at the bug bite.

"It's alive!" she gasps and squeezes a tiny worm out of my skin. What I thought was a strange mosquito bite is something far worse. Skin maggots burrowed in my flesh! I cry. I'm mortified, angry, exhausted, and I'm tempted to go back home. I clearly don't belong ...