Noise!

So my last blog post was in April, and now it’s October, and I’m gonna move right past the issue of not having updated my blog since then into the topic I’ve chosen to talk about today, which is how loud Uganda is.
I am day-dreaming of my upcoming trip home for the holidays, when I will spend a full month in Madison with good food, friends, family, and my fiancé. I will sit by a quietly crackling fire on a chilly night. I will stand outside in gently falling snow, undisturbed by any sound as the layers of snow filter out all background noise. I will quietly play Christmas music . I think part of the reason I so look forward to the sounds of the holidays – in particular the local ordinances against unreasonable loudness (ah, civilization ☺ ) – is that where I am now I am inundated with noises that are generally unpleasant and almost always uncontrolled.
For example, just now an airplane flew overhead. Now this is a little unusual – we’re not generally underneath a well-travelled flight path in this part of Uganda, so you don’t see or hear airplanes every day – but not really that strange. But what made the experience distinctly unpleasant was the three 10-year-olds in the courtyard that decided to attempt to communicate with said aircraft by screaming at the top of their lungs. I rushed outside from my room to see what was wrong, thinking perhaps that they were being tortured with all manner of inhuman implements but no: they were communicating with an airplane.
Another example: the chief means of broadcasting any kind of message (“Concert next Saturday”, “Vote for such and such a candidate”, or “Check out our reduced cell phone rates”) is to load up a flatbed truck with a generator and as many speakers as you can possibly fit (I am not exaggerating – these things are packed), and drive around town all day harassing your audience. It is profoundly deafening – it’s a roaming rock concert that lasts all day. Usually they just play the top 40 of Ugandan music, which is by no means pleasant to listen to, and punctuate it by interrupting every few seconds on the public address system with a flurry of words that I imagine must be entirely incoherent even if I did speak the language, which I do not. Of course, loud music isn’t limited only to roaming trucks with advertisements: any decent shop plays music as loud as they care to. In fact, as I walk home at the end of the day that’s how I judge whether the power is on: if it’s a quiet walk, power must be out.
A third example: livestock. It is altogether a myth that roosters crow at sunrise. They crow late into the night, and begin crowing long before dawn. There is no pattern that I can discern, save that it always seems to be loudest and most frequent precisely when you need to sleep the most. And roosters are everywhere - and I believe they communicate, because no sooner does one let loose than all the others answer and it is no small annoyance. Another frequent pest: pigs! Behind my house the neighbors keep a pig, and on many mornings it lets loose a cry that sounds like it is slowly being slaughtered.
Fourth: celebrations! Everything is a cause for a party that goes all night long. Weddings, national holidays, and even burials are all sufficient cause to cease caring whatsoever for the comfort of your neighbors, take the sound system off the aforementioned flatbed truck, crank up the volume and play the same music all night. Just the other week was the Ugandan Independence day, which happened to coincide with a wedding that took place inside my very compound. I spent many an hour on my bed attempting to sleep, a vain effort that not even earplugs could assist. I have decided that come July 4th, I am renting a flatbed truck and keeping my entire town awake with John Philip Sousa blasting all night long.
Fifth: Church! When I am in church in the U.S., I usually judge my church music by quality of the lyrics, beauty of the composition, and excellence of the musicians. (As a side note, I’d like to extend my thanks to Kathy Otterson, John Rafoth, and the CPC choir for surpassing excellence in all these measures. I never knew how awesome you all were until I came here.) In Uganda, loudness is all that matters. I attended one service during training when the power was out, so the keyboardist and guitars were silenced. I was overjoyed that we were left with simple drums and African harmonies – the rest of the churchgoers were depressed that they were unable to be loud. Most Sunday mornings at my site, I sit at a usually quiet spot outdoors, and I can hear church services going on from 2 blocks away in 3 directions. One Sunday while my dad was visiting, we stayed at a decent hotel in downtown Kampala. It was quiet enough – until Sunday morning when the church across the street convened their services. They began at 7am, and continued for a solid 12 hours. Ironically enough, they only played 4 or 5 songs, one of which is a fairly popular worship anthem in the U.S. : “Praise Him, Praise Him. Praise Him in the morning, praise Him in the noontime. Praise Him, Praise Him, Praise Him when the sun goes down”. Now I’ve sung this song at church in the morning at church. I’ve sung this song in the evenings at college ministry meetings. But I’d never heard someone sing it all day long! They quite literally fulfilled the exhortation in the song. It was, to say the least, unpleasant.
Some nights, long after most people have gone to bed, I stand outside in the courtyard around midnight. Silent clouds pass in front of the glorious full moon, a quiet wind whispers through the banana trees, and only the crickets dare speak. One moment of peace before I head to bed – a welcome respite from the aural onslaught of the day. I can’t wait to return to America, the land of noise ordinances ☺