The rooster urged me to wake up with his guttural crow, “Arise! Get out of bed sleepyhead!” I stepped out onto the ledge outside of my room and was greeted by echoes of the rooster’s song. Hundreds of crows beckoned the sleepy-eyed mountains to begin the day. My ears were filled with the morning concert while my eyes danced across the blushing clouds and the tired grey mountains unfolding into their tantalizing blue.
I had to tear myself from the symphony of chirping birds and cocking crows and rustling wind to walk up the mountainside to the kitchen. As my chest heaved from the hurried climb to the bangla, the frozen air stole my warm breath. I arrived to a crackling fire with smoke steadily streaming into a river to escape the grasp of the tin roof.
Here’s a picture I snapped of the kitchen then another
that my teammate Katie took of me once they put me to work.
There was another morning when the rooster crowed for me and I did not want to be roused. The first few days I was housed in an actual building with concrete floors, walls, and a tin roof. We were rotated into the huts for a few nights. Waking up to the cold morning is more difficult when you don’t have a warm bed, but instead have a drafty bamboo floor and walls separating you from the unsympathetically cold air.
The huts boast incredible workmanship and are visually appealing, but their use for sleeping when it is near freezing is not ideal. This morning I woke up cold and slightly bitter. I couldn’t feel my little toes and hastened to get dressed to walk up to the bangla, the hilltop tent where we receive our meals. While I walked up to the top of the hill I was chewing on the thought of how cold I was and how I had an hour and a half of waiting until breakfast was served. I was shaken from my thoughts when a lone boy asked me to join him in coloring. He had a tender way of communicating with me. He was inquisitive and sweet. I could sense the deep roots to every comment and question he asked. That hour and a half flew by in the blink of and eye as God taught me how a conversation can warm the soul better than any fire.
