Sounds and Smells

There are some parts of our experience we cannot easily convey. They are the sounds and smells of the city. For instance, I write this from the courtyard garden of St. Andrews Scottish Guesthouse and we can hardly hear each other speak due to the raucous of our feathered friends.

Walking outside the city walls where traffic hums and and drivers accentuate every turn, every light change, every ‘cousin’ vehicle it seems, with a heavy hand on the horn, leads us to believe that when culturally constant conversation is no longer available, the horn serves a secondary choice of voice.

Inside the walls, the Arab market rings with vendors’ calls to sample and buy. Child Labour laws are ineffectual here so children offer the same. Yesterday we saw two boys selling tiny Easter-colored live chicks; purple, orange, pink, and green, with the promise of good laying hens in a few short weeks.

At several points during the past week we have found ourselves in the midst of an outburst of song, drumbeat and clapping. It seems the Israelis love to celebrate out loud and do that with remarkable frequency. The first was in celebration of a Bar Mitzvah, another was a lively hallelujah chorus sung up to 15 times a day just to say thanks, yet another was a Going-to-the-Wall tune that made me wish I was in on the fun.

On every boulevard, every street corner, every block, olive trees and roses, snap dragons and rosemary, thyme and lavender grow and bloom in vibrant colors and fragrance. The breeze is thick with it. Rounding a corner also brings wafts of urine, pot, cigarette smoke and garbage. The heat and closeness of humanity create people odours; too long without a shower, perfume, laundry soap, and whatever is being consumed at that moment.

Noon approaches and garlic, tomato, dill and fish aromas quicken our appetites.

We take it all in as part of the expression of place and people and the joy and experience of simply being present, here, in a foreign land.