And So It Is . . .

Ah! My wishlist – that’s what I don’t want to forget! So if you happen to be my Fairy Godmother, or perhaps have her beeper number, take note please:

1. Consistent electricity, or at the very least a schedule of when it will be available so I can plan accordingly
2. A nearby bakery, specializing in warm gooey things
3. A washer and dryer, but just a washer will do really
4. Quiet mornings – until 11am at least.

On that last wish I’ll elaborate. So my father, being officially in the geriatric classification, arouses no later than 5:30am. Our rooms our separated by an extremely flimsy bit of a door, and so all of his morning shufflings and phlegm expulsions sound as though they are taking place directly next to my head. I’m getting more and more used to these sounds and most likely will be able to sleep through them in the next couple of weeks, but I’m not certain of my ability to stay asleep during what I’ve come to experience as the morning’s dynamic duo of sonic intrusions, which begin just after my father has settled:

1. A woman who walks down our close* crying what sounds like ‘Ay-ba-RAY-BAY!’ every 4 and-a-half seconds.

2. No more than 5 minutes away, and sometimes simultaneously, an old-fashioned bicycle horn, sounding out continuously, pausing every now and then for about 2 and-a-half seconds.

For about the 1st week I was here I was consistently snatched into reality, yanked from my hard-earned sleep (jet-lag was a real son-of-a) by these two sounds. I could not understand how people EVER got used to them, and then one morning I spied from my window a man spitting some venom at ‘aybaraybay’ woman about her early morning cries and I thought to myself ‘Damn straight. Glad it’s not just me.’

When re-telling the exchange I witnessed to my father, he gave me some much needed perspective, however. The woman is selling bread that some people will take in the morning on their way to work. The horn-honker is selling the newspapers. Throughout the day a tailor, dish-seller, meat-hawker and others parade up and down our close, crying a special cry or making a distinct noise (the tailor klinks together his scissors for instance) to let people know they’re around. Itinerants, my father calls them. This is their livelihood, their survival. If the horn-honker doesn’t sell his newspapers in our close at 6AM someone else will.

Fair enough, but I’m still not taking number 4 off my wish list.

* an enclosed street with duplexes on either side – about 30 total- that’s free from traffic and actually has a security gate that stays monitored by guards from about 9PM to about 6AM