Buzzing. Just the bug, buzzing forever, for all night. I throw my sweatshirt over my head and turn over. At home, I sleep with my feet kicked out from under the sheets; here they are wrapped up as part of the bite-protection cocoon. Hours before, I had tucked the mosquito net neatly around each corner of the bed, then reached my hand out quickly to turn off the light. This bug is caught inside the net, caught inside and tortured, like me.

I get a warning for the morning. The low rumbles of the call to prayer swallow my small room just as the light progresses from black into gray. I quickly break the cocoon and swing out from under the mosquito net. Cold concrete sends a chill up my legs. This is not my familiar stumble to the bathroom in a dorm; I’m wide-awake and I have been for hours. It’s just time to get up. I carry my heavy body across the hallway and turn the handle on the sink out of habit. Still no water.

The walk to the house comprises my first interactions of the day. Wave to the neighbors who run the store where I buy my water. Dodge a goat. Avoid the stare of other visitors in the neighborhood. He doesn’t say it but I know if he were a few years younger he would scream it at the top of his lungs and point: “Forenge!!” White person. Foreigner. You don’t belong.

I clang on the metal of the gate. Finally, Birhani swings it open and her face widens in a smile. “Selam-na Lola!” She grabs my shoulders and kisses my cheeks. “Selam-na. Dena na?” I ask how she is and she repeats her greeting. Our reflected words bounce from me to her and her to me as we walk across the courtyard, arm in arm. The other women are in the kitchen, loud laughter crackles from the open windows into the courtyard. Finally home.

The kids are tangled in knots on the clean, flowery couch. I’m lost in the pile. The curtains are closed; the only light filters through in shades of red and orange, dying the air with warm colors. It’s not cool, it’s not hot. Mekedes’ fingers run through my hair, she doesn’t even pay attention as she whips it into thin braids. Yigermal’s hands are hot with sweat, he inspects my fingers one by one. His little nails, tiny lines trace his knuckles, perfectly shaped hands. I’m not a forenge here, not in this orange shelter of people. I am family.

It is the end of dinner that is the hardest. Knowing I’m going back to an empty house, with only a metal gate to slam behind me. The plate looks as sparse as the table, the room, the fluorescent light beaming from the ceiling. And there’s that mosquito, zapping against the beams of white. Only moments before I was surrounded, covered in kisses and the smell of dinner on the breath of each beaming child. Their warm, healthy bodies bouncing around the house. Too impatient, too excited to sleep. Just a normal Tuesday, but the happiness, the family, the intimacy is obvious in their every move. Never alone.