Night Music

Sunday morning, 12:47 a.m. It is pitch black, Orion's belt is shining bright in the night sky and already the roosters are crowing, yelling at me to wake up. I have not yet gone to bed. Kellan, Yacarely, the students and I went to a restaurant to talk with Meghan, who runs the 4 Walls Project in the Peace Corps and Irene, who is nearly done with her two-year assignment in this small town.
We got to learn some of the locals who we will encounter over the next two weeks and joke with Kellan about the big loss.
His basketball team, Pedernal, had a game in the center court beside the town's church. When Adam and I walked up they were ahead 9 points. Ten minutes later, the guys in blue were pitching nothing but baskets.
It's cool. Saturday night, 7 p.m. and more than a hundred people of all ages were out, ringing the court and sitting on the concrete bleachers. Everyone knows everyone and the teams represent their section of town. If I were on a team, I'd be Central. Xiomara , my host mom, lives a block away from the action and I can hear it now, as a matter of fact, from my room, beside my mosquito net, along with the chickens.
I thought those feathery "gallinas" would wait until at least first light.