Sound and Space

I got up today around 6:30 am, and went running around the hospital compound. I am very happy I get to run here. It is one of the things that I use to help alleviate stress and it helps un-cloud my mind. With so much language study and learning of so many things, it does not take long for my brain to get overloaded. It is very nice having a space that I can use to run. The hospital compound is not crowded, cluttered and unsafe as the streets in Pakistan. The hospital grounds are definitely a peaceful refuge from its surroundings. And yet in the midst of this “peaceful refuge” there is still so much noise.

            At around 6 in the morning the call to prayer will start. When I first got here it would wake me up every morning before six. This call to prayer will change everyday as it is determined by where the sun is in the horizon. It will start to become earlier and earlier. As well, depending on what Islamic group will determine what time the call to prayer is done. So a few minutes after the first mosque starts another mosque will blare their prayers. Yes, they will blare their prayers. Every mosque (and there are many of them) has loud speakers pointed in every direction. So five times a day, and on special times during the week there are the calls to prayer, which will last from anywhere between several minutes to hours. Not that the call to prayer actually lasts hours, but the preaching does. The preaching just as the prayers is blared on the mosque’s speakers.

            Then there are the “special events.” Since we got here there has been a couple. They go on throughout the night; maybe ending around 3 Am. Gunshots throughout the night are heard (but this can be normal every night as well). Music is blared out from the loud speakers so all of Shikarpur can hear, and then preaching. It kind of sounds like a Billy Gram crusade, only it is in Urdu or Sindhi and its Muslim.

            The gunfire and firecrackers are interesting to hear. I worry at times that were under attack, but it turns out it was just a wedding or a festival. Terry was telling me that it is cheaper to shoot bullets into the sky then buy fireworks. So during weddings and other celebrations guns are shot off, some have homemade “fire crackers,” which could probably do some serious damage if they wanted them to.

            Then there are the horns from the traffic and the train. It’s throughout the night, and can be heard anywhere on the compound. On the streets, it takes a person awhile to adjust to all the honking and thus creates an uneasy atmosphere for newcomers who are not used to being honked at constantly.

            Yet with all this, the hospital compound is still a quiet and peaceful haven. So this begs the question of what it is like outside the compound. When answered it gives people a good idea of what it is like for a foreigner who is used to noise bylaws and a society that respects other people’s sound space to come into a place that does not.

            I asked my language tutor about the noise pollution, as I thought that a national Pakistani must get used to all the noise and not get bothered by it. I was a bit surprised when he told me he was actually annoyed with how the mosques blare there sound in every direction. “The call to prayer that lasts a few minutes,” he said, “is bearable, but when they get on the loud speakers for hours at a time and preach, it is very annoying.” He also told me that under Pervez Musharraf, the former ruler of Pakistan, there was not as much noise, as he made it illegal for mosques to blare their stuff over loud speakers (But also under his rule there apparently was quite a bit of persecution of the minority groups).

            So as I ran this morning I was not annoyed at the call to prayer and the music that came afterward, but I just laughed wondering about this interesting country that is so different from my own. By now I am used to most of the noise. I got a little offended when I heard and saw that the mosque next door has taken the liberty of pointing their loud speaker directly at the hospital. One of the nurses was telling me that when it is time for prayers they could barely hear each other in one of the wards. That does seem to be a bit too much. I wonder if anyone has gone over there to ask the people at the mosque to point the speaker in another direction? What would they say?

            For now we live with this noise, and keep in mind the appreciation for our home country that respects people’s space; even to the point they outlaw noisy cars. And I am in wonder of this country that is so different then my own and so very noisy.