Friday, September 14, 2007

Happy Birthday! and other sounds

Laying on my somewhat hard bed last night around 11:00, I began to think about the sounds around me. Out in my apartment complex courtyard, I could hear some restaurant workers cleaning dishes from the days work. Scraping and brushing, lots of water swishing around, it seemed like. I heard a small boy, perhaps 4 or 5 years old yelling to somebody, and that somebody, sounding like a friend about the same age, responding. Beeping buttons on the apartment front door tells me a resident is just arriving home. The honking of taxis and other vehicles, near and far away, reached my ears after those other sounds, making me realize that I'm getting used to hearing those sounds while sleeping. (Mind you, sometimes they do still scare me when they are coming from directly behind me while I'm riding my bike!) Chirping crickets remind me of summertime in Nebraska, lulling me right to sleep. The combination of all those noises provide some great background music almost all night!

Another sound that I hear often and has become part of life here is Happy Birthday. Daily, almost constantly, it seems, I hear this song. Sometimes in my head I hum along, but sometimes out loud. Sometimes I sing the song to myself, pretending like it's my birthday, but usually it's somebody else's birthday in my mind, and so I sing to them. You might be wondering why I hear this tune constantly. Well, the garbage man, the trash truck, the guy who goes around emptying the public garbage cans (whatever you would like to call him), has a tune to notify nearby people that he's there to do his job. It's loud, it's hard to miss, and it's Happy Birthday to You.