Letter from Mwanza - No 10

12th March, 2008

“Dawn Chorus”

I seem to be rising earlier these days, and it is now just after 6am. The dawn is breaking and in Swahili time this is the start of the day. Perhaps some sort of recorder would be more appropriate to give an impression of the sounds, but here goes:-

Of course, the cocks are crowing, birds tweeting in random order and intensity, cows mooing, and the dogs! When they start its like war has broken out, before long the growling goes into yelps, howling and gnashing. Certainly you wouldn’t want to be in their midst – sort of Hounds of the Baskervilles, but not just one, many of them.

This background noise mixes with the sound of people starting to move, coughing, greeting each other, children’s laughter and talking in animated voices. In our house, we are next to a murran road, which by Mwanza standards is quite flat. Although we haven’t yet identified where they go, several rather clapped out old lorries bounce along the road kicking up clouds of dust and making a hell of a noise. They drown out the sound of the shuffling feet of people walking and these people then have to move out of the way of these vehicles throwing up loads of dust. These lorries often carry loads of stones, so it might be some building/construction company.

Earlier than this the gentle and quite melodic sounds of the call to prayer at a small mosque can just be heard depending on the wind direction, and usually just about now, a taxi pulls up close to us and hoots. This could be just one hot, or several, depending on whether his complement of passengers turns up in time.

Putting all the sounds together creates a magical and not unpleasant sound. Certainly a change from the M3’s one dimensional noise and consistent drone.

The area where we live (Bwiru) is about 3-4 miles out of town, and is an up and coming area. There are some fine houses being built, and gradually the small huts, shambas and grazing land is being beaten back into a more manicured residential area. Gardens and lawns are being tendered, and security gates and alarms proclaim the emergence of the middle class. So big white fenced houses now sit rather uncomfortably besides sort of shanty buildings and huts. It might be interesting to find out what the neighbours felt about each other?

Kwa heri for now
Donald