Listening to Lusaka

Lusaka Sfx - the soundtrack to our new home...

Unfamiliar sounds in a new country keep me awake. My excited brain is busy mapping the terrain and conducting risk assessments. What kind of creatures are out there? Is that guns or fireworks? What language is that, and when is the music going to finish?

Our cottage is at the back of a lush colonial style garden with lawns, palms and flowering trees. Beyond the louvre windows are a multitude of insects, birds, spiders and an as yet unidentified creature that makes an almost mechanical, regular beeping sound like an unsilenced alarm - very disturbing for an anaesthetist. In fact, jet lag has opened an auditory window into the night-time soundscape of our new home.

Then, just before 6am as the light begins to break, the birds start their morning song. From all corners of the garden comes chirping and warbling – a pleasant, but early wake up call. Before long the traffic noise takes over as the dominant sound track. We are living in one of the central suburbs – Rhodes Park, a former Dutch colonial district – and quite close to a major roundabout and throroughfare.

Driving here has been relatively easy so far. Firstly, our cheerful car says something to us in Japanese when we start it. Cars drive on the left here, and fairly slowly there are many speed bumps, roundabouts and four-way stop intersections. The drivers are not aggressive, though large fancy cars take right of way, of course. In our first few days here, there were a number of sirens though that required us to move out of the way – a couple of processions of what appeared to be visiting heads of state (Jacob Zuma did visit to open the Agricultural Show). One cortege was led by an ambulance blasting its way through the Great East Road to make way for an elaborate cream and gold coffin in a glass-sided hearse, followed by an open truck filled with young men and flags. The urgency seemed overstated, but then I didn’t know the occupant.

Of brief concern was the distinct sound of gunfire not far from our house. We heard it in the late morning on two subsequent days, later seeing a military helicopter pass over at approximately the same time each day. No-one around us seemed concerned or bothered. Wilson, who works here at the house, told us that for many days in August we would hear this, as there are various military displays and parades underway not far from here.

The places we visit with Frankie also introduce new backing tracks. Walking along dusty, broken footpaths we have come across wedding celebrations on our way to parks and private playgrounds; an amusement park with a jumping castle (these are apparently a big thing at kids parties here); two nearby cafes with good coffee and wifi (doesn’t even feel like we left Melbourne).

The late afternoon brings up the number of bird sounds over the afternoon peak hour traffic. Doves, swifts, sunbirds, bulbuls – we are learning the new avian fauna piece by piece, more by sight recognition than sound. Insects and crickets take over after dark, though with some competition from a bar in the next street pumping out some occasionally familiar tracks.

So these are the sound effects of our first few days. The next week is going to get a bit wilder, so listen out for the beasts, and feel free to send me identifications and/or risk profiles.