Early Morning Wake-Up

The morning after arriving in La Esmerelda for the National Council Meeting, I was sleeping snugly in my wood-plank bed. The floor was exposed rock… I don`t think the bed had too many fleas… I was looking forward to hopefully sleeping through the mill while usually starts running at 5:30am to grind the corn so the women could make fresh tortillas for breakfast. The roosters and fighting dogs had long sense stopped being a problem for me… I can about 99% of the time sleep through them now. There was hope that I could sleep in until 7am… that was at least until the hen woke me up by landing on my chest as she entered my bed. I did not know what had landed on me at first… and was scared that for some reason I was being attacked by who knew what… I could not move my arms for they were secure in my sleeping bag. So in part I was relieved when it was just a chicken on top of me as I opened my eyes. As she moved off of me, I figured out how to pick her up… I have never picked up a chicken before, I had no clue how tightly I could or should for that matter hold her and if she would try to peck me.
So I finally grabbed her, she didn`t peck me and I threw her out of my bed and climbed back in my sleeping bag. About 10 minutes later, I was woken up to her landing on my chest once again… so again I removed her from my bed… 10 minutes later she was in bed with me again… I could not figure out why she was so insistent!

I grabbed her one last time and opened the door to my room and threw her outside. However, as I was walking back inside content that I had triumphed, the two little girls told me that the hen needed to be in my room because she lays her eggs in the bed… Yep, IN the bed… so defeated I let the chicken back in my room and let her jump unmolested into my bed. I covered my backpack and sleeping bag with a blanket and went to take my very cold shower at 6am. When I returned… sure enough one newly laid egg was waiting in my bed.