Noises and Personal Space

When I was a freshman at University of Oregon, I lived in the dorms adjacent to the construction site of the Living Learning Center. We were not told about this prior to moving in, and in fact, my window was about 20 feet from the fences. I was woken up every morning for 9 months to the tune of the biggest drill I have ever imagined. Come winter term, they were behind schedule. The work day went from 8am-5pm, to 7am-6pm. Then, they added Saturday. For those of you who know me well, you know what a monster I am without my sleep. My 6’6”, 220lb friend (Andy) has claimed that the only time he is ever scared of me is when he has to wake me up after an all night bender in Black Butte.

After the first few weeks out here, I find myself longing for those soothing sounds of a jackhammer.

Animals
The rooster must die. I had envisioned this stallion of feathered birds to majestically announce the day’s break, and then dutifully retire to his nest for siesta. Wrong. Instead, that bird proceeds in a manner not unlike a drill sergeant, screaming at me until I am out of bed, and then screaming in delight at his accomplishment. Sometimes when I come home in the evening he will greet me with a screech that I am pretty sure is his way of saying, “don’t even think about a nap son. The day is not to be wasted.” It will be a glorious day when we eat that thing, but unfortunately, I recently discovered that he is our neighbors, not ours, and merely enjoys feasting on our trash fire pile.

The cow must die. This animal is unmistakably our neighbors‘, and she is none too happy about it. Growing up, I had often used the term “sounded like a dying elephant.” Much to my present chagrin, I should have been using “sounded like a dying cow” all those years. I’m not sure if this girl is hungry, sick, pregnant, dying or a combination of the above. I’m not even sure if she just sounds normal because this is the only sound I hear from her. It starts off like a normal, slightly higher-pitched moo, but it transcends pitches throughout the 10 second belch. By the end it sounds like the high-pitched scream of the woman in the shower from the movie Psycho, and it’s just as loud. This animal must not have the same sensitivity to light that the rooster has because she doesn’t know that when it gets dark it’s time for Brad to go to sleep. Bitch.

I’m surprised the cats aren’t already all dead. The only time I ever hear a cat is when I hear two or more of them fighting to the death. You all know what a cat fight sounds like, so I’ll leave it at that.

Sometimes I hear dogs howling at the moon, but other than that they are absolutely silent. I would consider one of these non-barking specimens for a domestic pet, as long as it could kill mice and wasn’t foaming at the mouth, of course.

Brady Bunch House
While I am writing this, Jaime and Caitlin are singing about the story of that lovely lady. We don’t have 9 people here, we only have 7. We don’t have a house in the suburbs, we have a small fortress on a medium sized compound. But we are definitely a family. It’s mostly love so far, and we aim to keep it that way, but it also means that there are 7 different people here who operate on 7 different schedules, professionally and personally. As previously mentioned, I am not a morning person, which I think people are beginning to realize… I have not hit anybody or exploded upon being woken up after 3 hours of sleep, but I’ve been pretty close. Lack of self-constraint is the staple of my morning routine.

Children
If it wasn’t for these bite-sized elements of my daily life, I probably would not have even bothered with this post. I can deal with animals and my crazy friends pretty much ok. But the kids that live in our compound are the absolute definition of hell raisers. They are 3, 7, 9, and 14, all boys. I had heard somewhere sometime that African children don’t cry. I’m here to confirm that they don’t cry, they scream. They start playing when the rooster wakes them up, and their favorite game is getting attention from the Muzungus. How could they ever get more attention then by screaming outside my window at 6:30 every morning? When they play, they scream with delight, and when they’re hurt or upset, earplugs with headphones on barely make a difference. One of their favorite games is to throw rocks at our garage door (I sleep in the garage, by the way), and see how long it takes before I scream back at them. Then they wait until I fall back asleep and repeat. One morning, the littlest one played this game I have since named Scream Scream, which entails him running around the house and screaming for 20 minutes straight, and then stopping outside the garage door and screaming until somebody wakes up. Scream Scream is not on my list of favorite African games.

Personal Space
With all these contributing factors, I’m sure you have already formulated an image of my capacity for nap time. Consider also the tin roof, which brings our room to a steady 110 degrees every afternoon, which leaks onto Joel’s head when it rains, and which sounds like a thunder storm when it’s rained upon. Writing or reading are about the only things I can do without an extraneous input, and right now there are 5 other people in this room, the rooster is making sure everyone knows how much respect he deserves, the cow is continuing its requiem, and the children are staring at us through the door, occasionally saying “you give me balloony.”

Conclusion
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I have come to realize that my blog posts have become an outlet to whine and moan about how hard life is. Well, it isn’t. Life here is amazing. I am reminded of this every evening while cooking dinner with no electricity during a lighting storm, when it’s 75 degrees and not raining. I’m reminded every morning after I’m rudely awakened and slowly realize that yes, I’m in Africa. The fact that I update this blog so seldom is a testimony that I only have something to complain about every once in a while. And, my dreams are so awesome. Go Malaria pills! I’ll have to start posting some of the more outrageous dreams.