Daniel and Laura Swanson Serving in Bolivia with NTM Aviation One thing I didn’t expect when we moved here were the different sounds we would hear!
We are getting used to it now and the sounds are now almost normal. Here’s just a little peek at what our ears hear all day…..
We are up around 7 and shortly afterward we hear the clanging of the garbage truck. They come down our street three times a week and bang on the side of their truck to let everyone know they are here. People go running out of their houses with their bags of garbage.
Every couple of weeks, the gas truck comes down our street. They ring a bell to let people know they are here. A couple times Dan has gone running out of the house thinking it was the garbage truck! We are just now able to differentiate betweent the two sounds.
Everyday, throughout the whole day, we hear honking. We live on a "well used" street and buses and taxis are very common. It is common practice for them to honk at intersections to let possible passengers know they are there or to warn other cars that also may be approaching the same intersection (there aren’t too many stop signs in Cochabamba). It’s actually a courtesy, which is weird for us Americans! We honk out of frustration or anger!
Every few days we will hear the fruit vendor driving down our street with a megahorn, yelling "Bananas, Apples, Oranges, Papayas!" (in Spanish, of course.) When we first moved here we had no idea what he was saying because all those fruits sounded like one word! Now we try to imitate him!
One sound that we will never get used to is the loud music. It’s not all the time, but neighbors will blare their music, especially on the weekends. That is one of the reasons the twins sleep with a fan in their room! Right after we moved into our new house we could hear someone playing music nearby and we soon realized that is was Spanish worship! We realized that even Christians here like to blare their music!
Oh, yeah. The other sound that we hear ALL the time are barking dogs. Dogs roam freely all around Cochabamba. This is one thing that I have a very hard time with. Most dogs will not bother you at all, but there are some aggressive ones out there.
That’s just a little taste of what we hear as we go through the day! It’s totally different than the peace that we were used to in the suburbs of Chicago!
