The Extraordinary Sounds of an Ordinary Morning - Some Lyrics Without Melody

The day begins at Mae Ra Moe camp with sounds. They all announce the expectancy of light in this way: 3: 30 The gongs at the Buddhist monastery on the hill awaken the three monks to their morning chanting and perhaps awaken the roosters; 4:00 Roosters begin to crow at various distances; 4:30 A neighbor's baby begins to cry of hunger for an early breakfast; 5:00 Footsteps of the students in the college dormitory move with the flicker of their candle on the ceiling, as they begin their morning study; 5:30 The first smell of breakfast - cooking oil, potatoes, noodles, rice, a crackling sound; 6:00 One student, Klepo begins to sing his favorite Karen love songs on the guitar; other days, another student, Bonaface sings lines from Fleetwood Mac's song "Love in Store" that he heard on my ipod; on other days he abandons his endless smile for the seriousness of listening to the Burmese shortwave radio station - what news is there from the land of one's home? 8:00 The cow bell announces that the first period of the high school has begun; 8:45 The first period ends with over 1,200 high school students standing to sing their Karen national anthem, about a place called Kawthoolei, a land of beauty and peace, home; 9:00 My first class begins with the post-high school students; a chicken wanders in followed by a flock of chicks; and then a duck; So a day commences, all along the sweet, quietness of crickets, announcing the night, all things transitory, along with the constant percussion of the rapidly flowing nearby river. Life in community is an amazing symphony of domestication, observation, transformation, transition, meows, quacks, oinks, and whines punctuated by laughter, announcements from the camp director over the loudspeaker ("someone else has gone to Canada to resettle, so their house is open"). Something is happening here. Something is being made here, tying the sounds to light, light to hope; hope to smells, smells to remembrance. Clearly, if we would really listen, we are being brought more towards home.