Dominican Natural Wake-Up Calls

It has been interesting to me to hear the many different sounds that wake me up in the mornings. As I have thought about it, I have come up with a list of things that I have woken up to since coming to the island:

• Cows. This is seriously annoying because they some times make terrible noises and not their nice mooing sounds.
• Roosters. If I lived on a farm maybe this would be expected, but I don't and they start crowing at 2 a.m. That's not when I want to wake up.
• Goats. This is also a little annoying because the noise is strange when a male goat is bothering a female goat. There is one instance I remember most: the sound of the brand new baby goat that the mother gave birth to outside our bedroom window. It sounded like a very sad cat.
• Bats. This is only possible if the bats live in your ceiling. Oh, wait, they live in my ceiling. Normally they aren't very loud but one morning I think someone came home late so they were in trouble and we heard all about it. They are also noisy at night as they leave the roof for their feeding time.
• Pigeons and song birds. This one is nice because it's soft and sweet. I can wake up slowly and just enjoy their songs and sounds.
• Rain. When it rains hard it gets really loud on our tin sheet roof. It was neat the first couple of times and I guess it still is neat because I have gotten out the video camera a couple times during the day just to tape what it sounds like.
• Sun. Most often I am up before the direct sunlight shines in our windows so it's not really an issue. A month or so ago, we did sleep in a bit and it was before we turned on the air conditioning and the fan wasn't on. I tell you, our bedroom got warm really quick with the sunlight shinning in.