What do you hear?

With some of my "peaceful" neighbors

BAM! BAM! BAM!

BOOM!

Baa! Baa!

Rr-r-r-r-r!

"HEY YOU! COME HERE! HURRY!"

"YOU'RE WRONG! YOU'RE STUPID! WHY DON'T YOU LISTEN?!"

In case you haven't gotten the idea yet, I don't live in a very quiet place. When you think of a tropical island, maybe you think of warm beaches, quiet breezes, and peace, but that's not exactly my reality.

My neighbors have been doing construction, so often I'm waked up by 6 or 6:30 in the morning with the sound of a load of rocks being delivered, or workmen yelling at each other, or roofing metal being dropped from the second story into a pile on the street. And since it's warm and there's no AC, my windows are always open, so the sounds reverberate on my concrete walls and seem to only be louder inside than out.

Yesterday there were a couple people working on building some walls and doors out of metal. All afternoon I suffered through the sounds of metal being sawed, pounded, dropped, moved. And in addition the person supervising the project was unhappy, so he was often yelling at the one actually doing the work to explain what he wanted. Because why would you talk in quiet tones when your lungs are capable of yelling?

Now I know at this point you're saying "Yes, but that's construction. Construction is noisy." True. But the rest of life is noisy too. My neighbors often conduct entire conversations yelling from one house to another. Goats and chickens wander the streets, adding their sounds. Motorcycles rev their engines, trucks and taxis beep any time they're coming in or out of the neighborhood, and I live on a dead-end.

Oh, and did I say that I'm in a quiet neighborhood? Yep, when I tell people where I live they often say "Oh! The coconut tree neighborhood? That's a peaceful place!"

Ha.

*Don't take this as true complaining. I'm fortunate to live in a "quiet" neighborhood. And I'm used to it. But if you ever are in a phone call with me you'll probably notice all the background goings-on.