When the rooster crows at the break of dawn...

Life in Tanzania would be strangely empty without the constancy of roosters and their obnoxious crow. Wherever you go in Tanzania, roosters are there. Monduli, Arusha, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar…roosters live in all these places. As a westerner who did not grow up around roosters, I always foolishly believed that roosters literally crowed at the break of dawn to wake everyone up and that was it. Ha-ha-ha. What a fairy tale that is! In truth, roosters like to be quiet for maybe a few short hours sometime between 12 pm and 4 am. Around 4:30 am (or sometimes quite earlier), far before the crack of dawn, when it is still completely dark, the roosters begin. Soon you learn to sleep through the cacophony. Roosters live to make a fuss. Once they start, they do not stop and spend the rest of the day cock-a-doodle-doodling at the top of their considerably loud lungs. I have been in the middle of an English class, in the dining hall, and been rudely interrupted by an unbelievably loud cock-a-doodle-do. Needless to say, that never happened to me at Central High. A rooster is the ultimate ridiculous macho male. They strut around and make a huge ruckus and bother everyone and love every minute of it. Although they are annoying, I still can’t help but laugh when I hear them, just for the sheer amazement at the intensity of a rooster’s crow. Every single time they crow they really give it their all. I’ve often wondered if they get sick of themselves and their compulsion to crow. I know I would. The rooster pictured above has his home at a boma (Masai home) that Tony and I visited a couple of weeks ago. He was quite handsome and moving quite quickly, hence, difficult to photograph.