Throughout each month, I make notes on what I want to write about on this blog, and I gradually compile them into a coherent post. At the request of a friend, I’ve been making notes based on this prompt: describe my neighborhood, as experienced by my five senses.
What do I see? What do I hear? What do I smell? What do I feel? What do I taste?
Originally, this post was going to look something like this:
I see garbage piled up on the streets, people sleeping in the garbage like corpses, dogs running wild with whole chickens in their mouths, rusted out cars sitting on flat tires along the curbs, young children making mountains with the dirt in the street, crippled women begging next to railroad tracks.
I hear squeaking brakes as drivers skid over giant speed bumps, cars honking at pedestrians as they weave between lanes of traffic on a busy street, children screaming after their mothers have hit them, the call to prayer blaring through close conversations, welding, chain saws, and hammering at all hours of the night.
I smell car exhaust. Hookah. Cigarettes. Garbage. Dust. I am constantly hot. Constantly sweating. Constantly scraping dirt out of my eyes. I can’t taste pork. I can’t taste ham. I can’t taste wine. I can’t taste peanut butter.
You get the picture.
But after being here for a full three weeks now, there are other things I’m noticing:
I see two young girls holding each other’s hands as they cross the street, boys playing a pickup game of soccer in front of their father’s store, an outdoor fruit and vegetable market five times the size of my house, a boy in a bakery smiling as he asks us if we would like anything else, the most beautiful orange sunset I have ever seen.
I hear a child laughing as he rides on the back of his father’s motorcycle, neighbors exchanging words of peace to each other as they pass, sheets moving on laundry lines as they dry in the desert wind, cheering as the soccer team scores another goal.
I smell fresh mud on the street after an afternoon of rain, warm crescents filled with the sweetness of dates. I feel the relief of a warm breeze, the protection my headscarf provides against sunburn. I can taste soft pita bread, and hot tea with lots of sugar in it.
I’m gonna be honest, the first three and a half weeks here were hard. It’s hard being away from home. It’s hard not having a shower head or air conditioning. It’s hard living in a city where you don’t know the language.
But it’s also really cool being here. Being in a place so unlike home. Being around people with completely different life experiences.
So yes, I’ve been homesick, and excited, and frustrated. I’ve been happy, and annoyed, and at peace. And I’ve also been all of those things at the same time. In other words, I’m having a very rich cross cultural experience.