Sounds

I’ve enjoyed the sounds in Africa. I will miss them. Okay, not the tormented pigs but all the others. While I was on the camping adventure I particularly enjoyed the sounds in the evenings and mornings lying in my tent, or on my mat out under the stars.

Animals: The rooster has endeared itself to me. I love its cock-a-doodle-doo which incidently doesn’t sound anything like cock-a-doodle-doo. Kikeriki is a little closer especially if you leave off the last ki. It starts its call early in the morning with all the other birds who wake up before 5. But that’s okay. The rhythm of life here is different. The whole world wakes up at 5, in the country and in the city. “If I were a farmer I wouldn’t need an alarm clock, I’d have a rooster.”

I love the birds. They have such interesting calls. Of course I don’t know the name of any of them. So I’ve been making them up. Back in Uganda we already discovered monkey bird, electro bird and fork on wire bird. The other morning in Marangu, in the foothills of Kilimanjaro, I heard a new bird that I call new flute bird. It sounds like it has a new flute and it’s practicing its high notes which come out very breathy and weak but then it always finds that favourite first note it learned and it plays that loud and clear. There’s also grace note bird which does three chirps all on the same note and then on the fourth one it adds a little grace note.

At night on safari we heard many interesting sounds. There is of course the ever present singing of the crickets that provide the background for the whole feast. We camped two nights on the Serengeti on a little no-fuss site. We heard a lion roar a couple of times off in the distance and the hyenas were around laughing. To me it sounds more like a whoop than a laugh though. Musila, our guide also heard an elephant’s stomach rumble which I’m sad that I missed. I think those were my favourite nights. On the Ngorongoro Crater rim we heard animals munching away as they grazed on our campsite, water buffalo and apparently bush pigs too. Kaye, from another group, had gotten up in the middle of the night to pee and had seen one right near our tent.

In Tarangire National Park we saw a mama elephant with two young. They were right up close to the road and we startled them with our big white truck. The mama elephant let out a warning trumpet call and the cute baby elephant came running from behind a bush. Then after watching them for a little while we startled the male teenage elephant and he let out a great trumpet call too. That was a fabulous way to end the whole safari section of the tour.


The sound of the muezzin and the church bells bring wonderful character. Most interesting too is when the muezzin finishes the call to prayer and then continues on with a sermon blaring through the loudspeakers for 45 minutes and then at 5 in the morning like at the beach campsite in Dar. Apparently he was telling people they should get up and go to work. (And maybe to drink Pepsi? :-))In villages that are both Muslim and Christian like Lushoto in the Usambara Mountains, the call to prayer happens at 5 and when it’s finished the church bell rings.

And the sounds of singing I love naturally. In Moshi at Lisa’s I heard singing coming I think from the nearby church. I imagine it was a Friday evening service or event of some kind. In Marangu a group began spontaneously singing at a nearby camp. My favourite was in Tarangire when Chloe and I were laying out on our mats looking at the stars and listening to the sounds when a group began singing off in the distance. It was so magical. It may have been a church, or a choir or a family or a group of friends. But it’s all that beautiful African style of song.

There are so many other sounds; the sounds of the city, the bustle, the constant honking of car horns, the sellers welcoming you and trying to get you to come and buy their ware. The “Hallo Canada” calls when I walk by and they notice Jane’s Canadian flag baggage tag on my knapsack. And the cute little kids call “Hi Muzungu” or “Jambo, Jambo!”

I will miss the sounds of Africa.