Some neighborhood sounds

Let's talk about problem solving. What do you do if a neighbor is doing something annoying, such as playing their music too loud? Calling the police right away is a little extreme. More likely you'd either put up with it or ask the neighbor to turn it down ... pretty please.

Sometimes it feels like everyone in Burkina plays their music too loud. A lot of people play music on their cell phone, without headphones of course, and they do this on the bus, at the post office, on the street, in the restaurant ... in short everywhere. Then there's the "neighborhood discothèque". It's a virtual boom box competition around my house. Each house trying to dominate the next and thereby creating a cacophony of Bob Marley meets Celine Dion meets Akon meets Burkinabè pop artists meets the drums/singing of a local church down the street. The latest to join the overplayed ranks is UB40's "Red, Red Wine" (originally by Neil Diamond (1968)) and I truly consider this to be a dramatic improvement! Although now I sit on my porch and really crave red, red wine. Confession time, I too have joined my voice (not literally) to the disharmony surrounding me, blaring my music whenever I grade or do laundry. At least my contribution is extremely classy considering all the wonderful music my super awesome boyfriend sent me. Grading is much easier with the blues and laundry is a cinch while listening to comedy.

Now imagine adding to all this background music the sound of goats. Not just any goats, but two of the unhappiest, most miserable goats in all of Burkina Faso. Let's be clear that goats don't politely bleat like sheep. Their wobbly cry/scream is somewhat similar to that of a extremely upset baby. These two particular goats happen to live immediately next to me and they never shut up! Half the time it sounds like they're in mortal peril and the other half like prisoners yelling for their one phone call. Maybe it's because they're penned up when they'd rater be roaming free, slaughtering baby trees at will. I've tried to discover the cause of their distress. I looked over the wall, but their pen is out-of-sight so no luck there. I even did some internet research on goat calls. I found one site that has a goat call named "Pygmy goat kid calling for its mother" which is similar, but my goats' vocalizations are more forceful by a factor of ten. For your amusment I found a YouTube clip that's pretty darn close, just play it over and over and you'll understand. So here's the dilemma ... do I ask my neighbor to muzzle(?) his goats, do I third party the problem Burkinabè style or do I continue living life to the soundtrack of depressed goats? Yeah it'll be the last one.

On the serious side of things, I have new neighbors as of last month: a veterinarian and his wife and two girls (about 1 and 3 years old). This really is very nice except that my bathroom window literally opens into their courtyard. Meaning I can hear everything going on in their house and I suppose they can hear everything I'm doing as well. Just before writing this post I heard the mom spanking the older girl multiple times. It was horrible! and I know there's absolutely nothing a child that young could have possibly done to deserve even a fraction of what I heard! This is going to be an even bigger problem than the goats...