It was so hot; there was no breeze. I was having trouble sleeping. But it wasn’t the heat of the day driving me crazy. It must have been just after midnight—a dog started barking. He was up in the hills somewhere. He kept barking and then another dog joined him in the noise. Then off in the distance other dogs woke up and started barking. Many of them all at once. They made so much noise they woke the roosters, and they started cock–a-doodle, doodling. I thought I would go mad—it was so hot and there was so much noise so late at night. I needed to sleep; I have so much work to do today.” Silvana DeLuna finished the entry in her diary and got out of bed, placing the diary and pen on the small night stand next to her bed. In the barrio of San Diego, part of the mountain town of San Blas de Illescas de Coamo, Puerto Rico, she has a three-room home. It is made up of a bedroom, a bathroom, and a pantry and two rooms connected that make up work space and kitchen, although more work space than kitchen.
