excuse me, there is a chicken in my hotel room

this is an interlude....as i am in between. in many ways.

(happily) exhausted. i just arrived home a few hours ago. off again parsi to palung.

parsi is nepali for the day after tomorrow. i like that there is just one word for this day.

i notice. these days, memories seem to inhabit my body. moving around. coming and going.

i fear losing them. i keep thinking to myself - i need to write all of this down. i can't forget that the other day, when i was in rautahat, i went to the office and someone told me that two bombs had gone off that morning.

one at the women's development office. another in a bus. two different underground groups took responsibility for them. one was called the terai cobras. this is why the buses are on strike and only the man who has come in a cart was able to make it to our office.

when did this become part of my normal everyday?

now there is a local political leader who controls three of our 19 working areas who has decided he doesn't want any ngo presence in the area. at least unless he can control of our budget and all of the decisions that are made. luckily, he allows our staff to continue - for now - to help find children who need to go to school and to work with our women's community action groups. who knows what will happen next.

tomorrow there is supposed to be a strike again. maybe. no one is sure. it's hard to know if it's just a rumor.

in between...i find ways to double up laughing with other volunteers as i watch my friend, george, gallivant around in a costume made of newspapers at our volunteer conference. i say goodbye to my friend who has perhaps most helped me survive here until now: elijah. i stumble across and get pulled into an ancient festival, a tug-of-war between men.

they are pulling a chariot. elders sit on top. candles, incense, ceremony witnessed by thousands. boys get pulled up top by shirt top. it is maybe to help call in the rain. maybe the first day of a four day festival to bring in the new year. it's hard to know, really. maybe both.

anyways, back to rautahat. which was only weeks ago. but feels like ages ago.

i am sharing a hotel room with a woman who works in our central office. i don't expect to see her here. but her father has died, she is telling me. she has spent 16 days grieving with her family and is now traveling back home to kathmandu and is joining the office vehicle as it returns back. we happen to be close to her family's home.

we talk for a long time, she seated on her bed. me on mine.

and then she looks at something behind me. i turn around to see what it might be, and notice a chicken in our hotel room. this hotel room that is - in contrast to its surroundings - amazingly light and bright and clean and comfortable.

yes, a chicken.

what?

apparently it was a gift from her brother. she had already brought it on the bus with her this far. it will be saved for a special meal. after the fasting she will do as part of the grieving.

the chicken was totally quiet at night, despite my fears that it would be running around the room keeping me awake. maybe even jumping onto my bed.

when darkness falls, however, it also fall silent. i sleep incredibly well.

until 4:45 AM. at which time the chicken (now i know it's a rooster) decides that it is time for everyone to wake up.

it calls in the morning - even before the sun has begun to rise. loudly. soooooo frickin' loudly. amazingly loudly. just inches from my head. i am utterly confident that everyone within a mile radius is also now awake.

yes, i say internally. in my head. this is my life now. personal rooster alarm clocks, bombs on buses and in offices, geckos running across my floors, laughing until i cry at my friends' antics, calling in the rain (or new year) in ancient tradition, severed goats heads being loaded in the back of a truck, a parting gift of chocolate from elijah. and finally, home.

how happy good chocolate makes me. but not to detract or distract...

these memories. i should write them down. keep them as mine.

they are sacred, they make me, my story. what am i outside of my story?

i should write them down. vignettes that find themselves now a part of me, moving within me. vivid and vibrant. vying for my attention.

really, i must craft.