I awaken abruptly at 6:30 AM in spite of the fact that my alarm is set to 7:30, awakened by nature’s own alarm clock. Roosters in Mexico do not cock a doodle doo. Their LOUD, hoarse, shrill screams (Ah Ah Ay’ oooooh) split the air precisely at the first hint of light each morning and continue for a good hour or so—long enough to insure that no human sleep survives their onslaught.  It is as though nature, unaware of the invention of alarm clocks, has taken on the duty of awakening the world. And if this isn’t enough, it invented the fighting cock, which doesn’t limit its crowing to the hours around sunrise but instead crows off and on all day.

I once had a neighbor who, in desperation, offered to buy all of his neighbor’s fighting cocks and then to gift them back to him if he would just move them to another location. The neighbor took him up on the offer, but a few years later when  the friend and his wife moved back to the states, I’m unsure if his contract with his neighbor passed on to the people who bought his house or if any warning was even given in their rush  to exit Mexico. Perhaps the neighbor who owned the fighting cocks, realizing the old contract had ended, collected again from the new buyers.

I started this post at 6:30. It is now 7:30 and my phone alarm has started its 7:30 wake-up trill. I press the “Stop” button, but seconds later, I hear the stubborn succession of a cock’s crow and a dozen answers. After one hour, the chorus shows no signs of ending, but has instead been joined by a myriad of other bird calls with a dozen or more town dogs providing a descant .

Good Morning, Mexico.