2:07am

I am not sure if I awoke from she shrill rhythmic screams of agony or my heart beating out of its chest. Perhaps both. Once on my feet, I listened again thinking perhaps it was a hurt animal caught in a trap set by the hunters. I do not remember the moments between waking and standing out in front of the gate to our base. Staring into the jungle of the most absolute darkness, my chest pounded throughout my whole body. The open wailing of funerals here are some of the most harrowing guttural cries, buffered, thankfully, only by the circles of drums and shakers and chanters echoing back and forth exchanging rhythms through the trees.

This is now the fourth and final night of mourning for Gabriel's brother, who was nearly 80 years old in a village where life expectancy is about 47 years. The woman has calmed now, her whooping and shrieking has turned to weeping and crying out a phrase that sounds similar to the French word for 'beans'. The drums and chanting are growing louder now, in tune with the crickets and calls of the birds in the night. My heart has reached a normal waking pace.

May there never be a time I can sleep though the sounds of such raw human suffering.