Cacophany

I'm sitting in the conference room of ACDI/VOCA, the agricultural development nonprofit I've been volunteering at for the past week. The office is really a big house that has been equipped to receive clients, so I'm looking out the window at the front yard. To my right is a verandah and the driveway. There is a rooster in the front yard that spends the day chasing after a group of hens and cock-a-doodle-doo-ing at all the wrong hours. In driveway is a fat turkey that has wandered in from the neighbor's yard, gobbling away at nothing, accompanying the rooster and the hens.

And then there's my contribution to the rural symphony. I have this awful cough that has been with me for 3 weeks now, hanging on despite two bottles of cough syrup and daily doses of honey. It's a deep, dry hacking that sounds like someone trying to turn over an Oldsmobile with a dead battery, each coughing attack leaving me red-faced and out of breath.

I feel sorry for my colleagues in the next room. Nothing like a silent, tranquil work environment to get things accomplished.