Marela Oduro is a compact, broad-shouldered human woman whose movements are startlingly gentle for someone with such work-worn hands. She walks with a slight forward lean, as if listening to the air ahead of her, and her fingers are always making tiny adjustments to cuffs, cords, or feathers. Her face is round and open, softened by laugh lines, yet one side of her mouth remains almost solemn even when she smiles. Her forearms carry a scatter of pale scars from talons and beaks. She smells faintly of cedar shavings, rain-damp wool, and millet. The unexpected contradiction is her hair, which is meticulously braided with pale silver cord, while her boots are permanently muddy and her apron is patched with bright scraps of children's festival cloth. She leaves people with the impression of being watched over, even when she has said very little.