The rooster sounds like it is next to my ear. I sit up in bed and rub my eyes. A donkey is braying in the distance. “What fun, today we start on the walls,” I think to myself. We all eat dishes of porridge. The tea is milky and filled with sugar.

My job is to carry rocks. I have a burlap bag about a yard long. I pry the first stone out of the crusty soil and drop it into the bag. “Great, only ten thousand more to go.”