Stressful Noise

 I know I have said it before: Dodoma is a NOISY place! Tanzanian culture is full of noise! It seems that music and noise are for sharing with all of your neighbours. We have had a very noisy week here, as loud music and enthusiastic preaching have been broadcast every afternoon and evening at full pelt across our local area, mingling with the sounds of the mosques and also public announcements. These public annoucements are shouted from loud-speakers mounted on cars that are driven around the neighbourhood (it appears that anytime is fine to make these loud public annoucements, night or day). And just to top it all off, the 05:30 sermons have started up again at full volume. EVERY day, at an amazingly punctual 05:30,  the preacher at the pentecostal church about 1 mile away from our home starts yelling and shouting. The noise level has to be heard to be believed.

It is incredibly stressful. Every day, we have no choice but to be woken in the dark at five thirty and then are forced to listen to a kind of  talk, which is not just shouted but sometimes screamed at us, sometimes sounding rather frenzied or angry. For at least 45 minutes, the noise fills every corner of our home and there is nothing we can do to turn it off. Any ideas about sleeping again are dispelled, as it is impossible to rest with that kind of noise in your bedroom. After 45 minutes of being surrounded by that kind of noise, you do not feel able to sleep again. Often, one of more of our children wake up too, so then us haggard and tense parents roll out of bed to begin the usual morning jobs, but instead of feeling rested after a night's sleep, we feel uptight and cheated of the final hour of sleep.
To try and catch up on missed sleep we must be in bed about 9pm, so then the evening jobs are left undone in the hurry to get to bed once the children are all asleep. Jobs left undone build up and so the cycle of stress continues. These jobs can't even be done during that stressful hour from 05:30, since waking children require our attention.
If you haven't already picked up on the fact, I am feeling very stressed by the way this noise is imposed on us and the way that my sleeping time is being stolen by some stranger!!
Last week, Andrew went to see the preacher at his church and pleaded with him to turn down the volume. The man said he would try and it was great that he listened to Andrew and turned the volume down a little- but not enough to stop waking us. The preacher also told Andrew that this is a permanent plan, agreed by a group of elders from his church! Argh!!! I can feel my blood pressure increase as I write that down here! Whilst I respect his vision to share his faith with the wider community, I struggle to understand why this man and his colleagues want to disturb the early morning peace EVERY SINGLE day, when he could just as easily preach in the evening when at least people are up and about, or even an hour later at 06:30, when it is at least light.
The man acknowledges that he has recieved several complaints, but he still feels that many others enjoy his broadcasts, so is worth continuing!! Personally, I don't see why those people can't tune into the local Christian radio station at 05:30 if they want to hear early morning sermons, since many homes here in Dodoma do possess battery operated radios even if they do not have electricity.

The whole situation is so stressful for me! I am feeling a little ragged around the edges through lack of rest. I really, really don't want to get up at 05:30 every day, Saturdays and Sundays included!! If I didn't have work to do in the day and could have a siesta, it would not be such a problem - if I didn't have jobs crying out for my attention once the children are in bed in the evening, I could cope. However, this is not the case and the tension I feel when I get woken and shouted at every day is not easy to put up with.
I drove to his church last week and took a photo of his mega-speakers on the roof of his church- carefully angled to fill the air with noise in every single direction:

I'm just grateful that the man responsible for the noise wasn't there when I took these pictures, as I was feeling very ungracious and uptight at the time and may be sitting here regretting an emotional outburst on my part- which could have been very unhelpful in a culture where a woman's opinion is of far less value than a man's and where it is considered very inappropriate to express anger in conversation. So the saga continues -and if any of you are wondering why you don't hear from us very often, it is because every spare moment outside of our immediate tasks is taken up with trying to catch 40 winks, in order to try and maintain a tiny bit of sanity in this stressful environment!