Things That Go Bump In The Night

It is 9:30pm and I am lying awake in bed at my host family’s house. I cannot think of a time in which I have had such difficulty falling asleep. There are just too many new and interesting noises all around me. For starters, I know in America we think that chickens and roosters only crow in the morning when the sun rises, well this is definitely a myth; they crow ALL NIGHT LONG! And when it gets colder outside, they crow louder. I’m sure that there is some explanation as to why this is, but all I know now is that it is a little distracting when I am trying to fall asleep, because I will be on the verge of sleep and one will crow right outside my bedroom window.

Do you have any idea what two donkeys having sex sounds like? Oh I do now. My first night at home-stay (my host parent’s house during training), I was trying to sleep, but there was this awful noise outside my window and I was a little afraid to check to see what it was, but I just had to know. When I opened the curtains, I saw a male donkey mounting his female. It was definitely a sight to see. Something I think every person should really experience on their own. Words just cannot do this experience justice.

Dogs barking, chickens clucking, roosters crowing, cars passing by, political ranting from loudspeakers of passing cars (all in Setswana), and random animals doing very random but of course natural things are the normal sounds from outside my bedroom window at any given time throughout the night. It is a very interesting experience to come from a place where it can get so quite at night, to a place that never seems to stop is the exact opposite of what I thought it was going to be like. I assumed that I was coming from a place that never sleeps a place where people always have places to go and people to see. That I was going to a place of peace and tranquility, a place where people and things move slower. I suppose in some instances, it’s very much this way. But at night, the noised seem to bump all night long.