The Noises of Bundibugyo

I wish I could record sound and post it here. I’m sure there is some way to do that but I’m not tech savvy and our bandwidth is slow. I live in Bundibugyo, as you know. It’s waaaaaay out in rural Western Uganda. Ugandans hear that I live out here and they often seem baffled; we really live in the sticks. You would think because it is such a remote location that it would be peaceful, quiet, and full of rainforest nature noises like you hear on those Bose sound machines. Nope.

Currently there is some kind of party going on outside our house. Maybe a political candidate drove through? I’m really not sure. But whatever happened, someone got their hands on several vuvuzelas. Since then, there have been spontaneous outbursts of bleating. At one point there was even a rhythm going on where the vuvuzelas honked and a car horn echoed back. It gets quiet for about 30 seconds…maybe they’re finished? Nope. One straggler starts up again and the chorus begins.

This is just one instance :) There is a goat pen close to my bedroom window that often holds sick goats who need care from one of our extension workers. Lately there has been one with “flu”. It has been sneezing non-stop. I never knew goats could sneeze. They often start bleating in the middle of the night too for no apparent reason.

Other fun noises: motorcycle horns beeping, big trucks barreling down the road, music that reaches our house all the way from downtown Nyahuka, our neighbor’s radio (often playing random American hits from the 1990s), bats screeching at night, our dogs rustling around (probably hunting) at night under my window, and the ever present “Majungu!” yelled by kids anytime I exit my house and walk down the street.

Bundibugyo is far from a quiet place. Even the nature noises can be overwhelming at times. But I do find myself liking other characteristics of it’s “country-ness”. I love that I can see the stars at night, that the air is fresh, that the sun coming up over the mountains is breath-taking, the green-ness of the banana leaves. And there are times when I wake up in the middle of the night and hear a wonderful thing—silence.