Friday 19 April 2013

A to Z 2013: Quiet

For the month of April I will be blogging alphabetically with the theme of Winnipeg versus Davao City. Not to prove a winner but simply to explore the differences and similarities between my home town and my current location.

Q is for Quiet!

City art near the Millennium library in downtown Winnipeg. A place to be quiet.


I used to sleep with ear plugs. Every night. The tiniest sounds would keep me up or wake me in the middle of the night. I'm not sure how this works, but where we are now, there is so much noise all the time that I think I've become immune and no longer require ear plugs.

As I write this there is a balut guy honking his bike horn as he goes up and down the street. Dogs are barking. We can hear the spoken conversation of people walking by. Any minute now I'm sure we're hear the piercing double trio of honks that means one of our neighbours is home and needs someone to open the gate. This happens every night.

Early morning we get the guys yelling out that are collecting plastic, cardboard, metal... (excited birds) they seem to keep going all day and are added to by the sweet corn and ice cream vendors as well as the knife sharpening guy.

Elections are coming up in about a month so a few mornings we have been woken by campaign vans blaring music over loud speakers. For about a month and a half leading up to Christmas we had carollers singing at our gate. 

See, here in Davao, the houses may be built with glorious soundproof concrete but the windows are all jalousies. We are thankful that our house has a lot of windows so we have great airflow but we hear EVERYTHING around us. And loud means your are having more fun in the Philippines.

Jalousie windows. Yes, they are dirty. Lots of dust gets kicked up on the street.

My old apartment in Winnipeg was kind of loud. We could hear the people upstairs moving stuff around and having arguments. My bedroom window was over an ally with a dumpster which seemed to attract drunk people at all hours of the night. This is when I started wearing ear plugs. After my husband and I got married we found a new place together and it was very quiet!

The noise we deal with here in Davao on a daily basis would warrant a complaint with the landlord or local police back in Winnipeg. Here it is just a way of life. We are just thankful no one near us has rooster. Yet. But still... I don't need ear plugs anymore.

On this item, Davao and Winnipeg are worlds apart!

12 comments:

  1. The sculpture in the picture in Winnipeg reminds me of a science beaker. Earplugs? I just put a pillow around my ears, sort of like a hat that blocks sound. :-)

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    1. It IS a beaker! That releases steam every so often. I found that a pillow didn't work as well as plugs.

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  2. I live in a townhouse complex and as soon as Spring hits..noise! All the kids, people on their decks...I'm mostly used to it by now. That gives me hope for visiting all the loud places in the world. Your neighbourhood sounds fun, all that action!

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    1. That is true... the noise does mean this is a very vibrant place!

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  3. Too funny. This is the second post in a row I've visited with "q is for quiet"

    But not only that, I just wanted to say that quiet is all about perspective. I grew up on an Air Force base of one type or another. But they ALWAYS had jet noise going. I got used to it. And when I married my Army husband, and moved away from my precious jet noise, the silence killed me. I couldn't sleep or concentrate, at least not until I got used to it. I miss my jet noise, but I know it would take a while to get back into the quiet that it gave me. :)

    Jamie Dement (LadyJai)
    http://writebackwards.we3dements.com

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    1. That's what I forgot! We are also under the landing pattern for incoming planes. So we also hear jets overhead a lot. Probably different than a military base, though.

      Similar to you, I do prefer at least the din of traffic to absolute silence. It seems to help the brain relax.

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  4. I think I'm the opposite. I can't sleep in silence. Not if I'm alone, at least. Its always been easier for me to fall asleep when I can listen to music, at least. Last night, I tried to fall asleep with the TV radar on (we had some pretty rough storms) and after an hour, I gave up and switched to music. I passed out right away.

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  5. It's getting to be that time of year when it usually gets noisy in the mornings because of all the birds. I shouldn't complain, because they are pretty, but at 5:30 in the morning they make for disrupted sleep. I guess that's one (perhaps the only?) good thing about all the snow we're still getting- I keep my windows closed so I sleep through the birds.

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  6. This is the 3rd post where Q is for quite... :) but each one has an angle and a character reflected on the writer and his life. Happy to connect. I am now following you via A to Z Challenge . Do feel free to drop by my blog Wilderness at www.disha-doshi.blogspot.com

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    1. You have such beautiful photos on your blog! I am now a follower. :) Thanks for hopping by!

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