A Joyful Noise to the Lord?

Had I known that choir practice begins at 6:45 a.m. on Saturday mornings, I may have reconsidered my three month stay. That isn’t entirely true. The music actually begins in a neighboring community with the “tambus”, the voodoo drums, at sunset on Friday night. Perhaps the celebration marks the approaching “Carnaval”, though I traditionally understood “Carnaval” to be a Christian holiday originating in southern Spain. Literally translated, the “removal of meat (carne)” signifies the indulgence in all things improper before the beginning of Lent. Naturally the holiday would have incorporated traditional African practices during the period of slave trade to places like the Caribbean and Brazil; unfortunately those practices may happen to be the aforementioned drums. In any case, it appears that the women that sing just across the courtyard (and it is a small courtyard!) are here year-round. The music is saintly, and, if I had to choose a sound for my alarm clock it would be that one. Oh but the best is yet to come. Once the women finished their performance, I was sure that I could catch a couple hours of sleep, since it was the weekend and there was no class to teach and the generator seemed to be running well. Foolish me! As if I was on some sort of television program with a hidden camera, a young band, consisting mainly of brass, began practicing five feet from my window. “No no, Jean, try your trombone scales again…” I waited patiently for someone to roll a blackboard into my room and run their fingernails across it. But there was no blackboard and there was no camera. Later, children eager to learn English ran into my room, yelling “Wow, you sure sleep a lot!”