WAKE UP!

For those of you who know me, you know I like, nay, I LOVE my sleep - God bless those souls who dare to wake me...

YET! there is no such thing as sleep here...

Wake up calls start around 5am and go on well beyond 8am...

It usually starts with the call/s of the cockerel/s - 'cock-a-doodle-doo'

On Wednesday it was the call of the 'umuganda-announcement man' who at 5am went around the village shouting,

'All ye, all ye, Thursday will be community-work morning, wake now and prepare thyself and make sure that lazy muzungu (me) does not get to sleep - sleep is for the idle and we are not idle people!'

(At least that's what I imagined him saying...) Followed with a kinyarwanda version of - 'I know a song that will get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves...'

I have thankfully trained my colleagues NOT to call me in the morning to 'greet me' - which is something that people do here.  They call to simply say, 'I am calling to greet you, good morning.' - and then hang up.  Only one of my colleagues this week thought it'd be funny to do so anyway just to see how I would respond - I was amiable.

But today took the biscuit.

6am - and these guys were outside of my house...(I tried to upload a video but failed...will try again another time - you'll just have to be content with a photo instead.)

Yes, they were awesome (think Japanese Taiko drummers or Chinese Dragon-dancing drummers) - just not at 6AM.  I actually took this photo (and the video) at school at around 7.45 when I had finally got over myself and made my way bleary-eyed to school...

WAKE UP MAY!