Sunrise

I wake up at 625 to my beeping phone alarm. I am disoriented, trying to remember where I am as my blurry eyes adjust to the darkness. I throw my legs over my bunk bed and mentally wrestling about getting out from under my warm blanket, pulling my mosquito net up around my shoulders, searching for my running shoes. I dress in my dark room with the aid of the flashlight on the end of my phone

I step outside, hugging my shoulders from the cold and looking around. The sky is a faint blue, the moon fading. Birds are the only sounds you can hear. I beginning running towards the bridge that spans across a brown river where everyone collects their water from during the dry period, pushing my tired body to take step after step. My feet thwack the red, packed dirt road, my lungs begging me to stop. I think of running on the indoor track at Western's gym, with my ipod and water handy.

I pass ladies with baskets of clothes on their head walking to the lake to do laundry. We exchange greetings, and continue on our respective paths. I move for bicycles that are tied down with plastic jerry cans for water, calling hello after they rattle and clink past me. Children giggle as they pass me in twos and threes on their way to school. Wisps of smoke hover over pots cooking over fire. The sky is streaked with pink and the morning is so fresh and damp that I can taste it in my mouth. Two geese fly over my head, honking.

This is quickly becoming my favorite time of day here. We have officially entered into the dry period, and it starts to get hot by 8 in the morning, becoming unbearable by about noon. The ground is so dry that large cracks are everywhere – as if they are begging for even a drop of water. Cholera has become rampant because people don’t boil the water they walk distances to get from the river.