I live in a charming area of Amman called the first circle. With the onset of the spring and summer seasons, I now spend a lot of my free time at home sitting outside. I am amazed with the variety of sounds I hear concurrently.
This morning I decided to pay a special attention to the sounds I grew accustomed to hearing and yet never took notice of. As annoying as some of them might be, I strangely find them all combined adding to the charm of my neighborhood.
Some of the sounds I was able to capture are the following:
* Birds Churning
* Tree leaves moving in the breeze
* Car engines
* Music coming from cars driving by
* Music announcing the presence of propane gas cylinders sellers' trucks
* Call for prayers, which are preceded by loud noise coming from turning the mosque's speaker on. Prior to the actual call, the neighborhood is also subjected to listening to the ending of a religious program broadcast from the same station from where the recorded call is coming
* Television programming coming from my neighbors’ house
* Distant private conversations coming form my other neighbors’ house
* Cats meowing
* Conversations of passers by
* Kids playing in the street
* Phones ringing coming from neighbors' homes
My favorite though is a new comer to the neighborhood. It is a truck that has been showing up lately carrying a loudspeaker. The call is for any scrap for sale. I just love it:
“illee 3ando khorda llalbai3…thlajjat…ghassallaaat…haddeed mawasseerr….tankaat lallbai3....ayy shee khordah lallbai3....illee 3andoh khordah lallbai3…”
Mohammad Al-Assad wrote an interesting piece on this called "Soundscapes of Amman". After my little experiment this morning, the article is amazingly accurate.
5 comments:
hahaha i heard him too! its has been a month with the playback cassette it is amazing, the gas truck used annoyingly reminds me its friday, but this one i sing along with him.. thalajaaat ghassalaat 7adeed mawaseeer tankaaat. you know iron prices are sky rocketing
sorry for the lots of writing mistakes
Hi Tala...I guess we are neighbors :-) Thanks for adding Tankaat to the list, I just edited this post. I also forgot to add the sounds of pots and pans coming from my kitchen and my neighbors' as well.
i dont know if you know this, but in USA, there is not a single cat meawing in any neighberhood!
they have squirrels instead! :S
Maher, I love squirrels. They have a mischievous look on their face:-)
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