Kipilefti

I woke up at 1.30 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, my punishment for oversleeping yesterday. Wandering around my room, later around the compound, lying under the mosquito net with the fan on full blast. The flourescent light in my room reveals me as glowingly pale, grey-eyed, with hair an unreal color that’s orange tinged with magenta.

The sky is just turning pink at the edges when I leave the building. The moon glows overhead; gruff, talkative crows fly above. A rooster crows.

White-clothed nuns walk around me like ghosts. I sit still, watching the day break.

As it gets lighter, the birds wake up and the frogs go to bed. It gets louder, and brighter. The moon loses its glow. Day has broken.