Silence

JANUARY 5 - I thought I was accomplished at dealing with silence – after all, I have lived alone for long chunks of my life, most recently from January 2008 (when Brandon moved back to Whitefish Bay) to July 2010 (when my nephew Lucas moved in.) And I gave up the habit of having the TV on for background noise, back in 2007. I rarely listen to music. I enjoy peace and quiet.

But here in Mozambique, alone in a brick home which I share with untold insects, large, small, fliers, crawlers – with no neighbours (all the expats are still away on extended Christmas holidays), I am really alone.

And the silence is deeper. It is a still silence, with perhaps the sound of cheerful crickets at night, or odd gurgling noises from the bathroom. The sharp, high “tink” sound when small, hard-shelled winged beetles hit the hard florescent light in the kitchen. Even worse, last night, in the dead of night, I awoke, and I could swear I heard someone in the kitchen, turning on the taps. I cowered in my bed, under my mosquito net, assuring myself it is literally impossible to break into this house without making a great deal of racket. And there’s a guard outside – or at least, someone impersonating a guard.

During the daytime hours, I can hear people off in the distance sometimes. At night, those mysterious sounds, scary!

I’m glad that Karen loaded up some music on my iPhone before I left, although repeated listenings of Annie Get Your Gun, Rita McNeil and The Sound of Music is getting a little tiresome. Ah – tonight I dipped into an album I had somehow missed – Queen. Bohemian Rhapsody – bring it on! Spiders and other crawlers – be warned, I am jazzed now!