Sounds of Mozambique.

Sometimes I sit in our house and I listen.

The roof of our house is made of straw, so even the quietest sounds are heard. There are so many sounds outside that I will always remember and relate to our time here in Mozambique.

Every morning I wake up to the sound of a broom against the cement.

"tchshhhhh, tchshhhh, tchsshhhh...(pause)...tchshhh, tchshhhh, tchshhhh....(pause)....tchshhh, tchshhhhh, tchshhh"

Every single morning around 7:00 AM our guard sweeps the sidewalk outside our gate on the street, without doubt. When he sweeps he does it in intervals of three. I hear it every morning for a good 20 minutes or so.

Every night we fall asleep to barking. Across the street there are two "guard dogs", and they bark at everything. There is one deep, loud woof. Then there is a not so loud and not so deep bark. I have never been able to actually see the dogs, but today I finally saw the dogs through the fences. It turns out there is a huge great dane standing guard, with his sidekick the weiner dog. Now I can finally put a bark to a face.

Every day, all day, we hear cars. There is a speed bump right in front of our house. Mozambicans are hilarious with speed bumps. Mozambicans are fast drivers generally. So they go fast down the road, see a speed bump, SLAM on the breaks, basically stop right in front of the speed bump, then proceed to drive over the bump as slow as a car could possibly go, then floor it again, and down the road they go. So this is what we hear over and over again, all day, everyday. Sometimes we hear it and get up to look out the window because we think someone has stopped in front of our house. But we find out time after time that it is just someone taking on the speed bump.

Every Friday and Saturday nights we fall asleep to music blasting. Apparently our house is in the party central of Maputo, and these Mozambicans party hard! The music usually starts about 7:00 PM and plays until 7:00 or 8:00 AM the next morning. In fact I am listening to the music now, as I am writing this. It must be someones birthday because they have played the "Happy Birthday" song 5 or 6 times already. Anyways, one Saturday morning we got up around 5:00 AM, happened to drive by the clubs, and you better believe the party was still on. I noticed many women who had stayed up all night; not to party, but to sell beer on the side of the road. They all looked miserable; freezing, uncomfortable, and tired.

Every time it rains here, it storms. We hear the thunder as LOUD and clear as I have ever heard.  The lightning has to be close to our house, considering how loud the thunder is. I swear it shakes the house. I was afraid of our house being hit and it going up in flames (with our straw roof). Then the guard pointed out to us that we have a lightning pole in the back of our house. So that makes me feel a little better. I would not be surprised if the lightning actually hits that pole, because the lightning has been SO loud.

Sounds are fun.

Here is a video of what are drives are like here in Africa.

Pretty much just like home :)