Blog 2: Soundwalk

1. As I step off the train, I hear the sounds of a bustling Liberty Avenue beneath the train station. Regardless of the time of day, I can expect to hear movement below me in the train station. It feels akin to an open-air museum, bearing an almost rooftop, panoramic view of ‘Little Guyana’ beneath me. 
2. Walking down the stairs, I am met with the sound of Hare Krishna worshippers playing their small bell-like instrument to the rhythm of the devotional songs they sing. The bells sounds shrill, and the singing is offkey with too many voices muddled together, but the sound of it all is very familiar, and welcoming even. 
3. Quickly after, my ears are flooded with calls of, “Taxi! Taxi!” to those walking down the stairs from the train. I shove past them, but as I cross the street I am met with even more taxi drivers shouting the same call. 
4. I hear the Q10 bus approaching the bus stop before I even see it. As the bus pulls up to the stop, I hear the air brakes decompressing, quickly followed by the rush of people scurrying to make the train before it leaves the station. 
5. As I walk down the avenue, I hear a man selling $5 phone cases, but spoken in the local dialect, it sounds more like, “five dollah, five dollah!”. 
6. I stop at a crosswalk and hear the honking of a horn. Not a car horn, but something more subtle. I look up and it is the snowcone man on his bike, ringing his bicycle bell for attention to make sales. 
7. At one point, I am surrounded by different songs of different genres playing in my ear. The grocery store is playing old soca, and the clothing store to the right of it plays retro Bollywood. The drastically varying sounds feel almost painful to listen to as they both play at competing volumes. 
8. I hear an elderly lady singing under her breath to the Hindi song playing from the clothing store, and a passenger in a passing car shouting the lyrics to the music playing in his car. It sounds like rap, but I can’t be sure. The voice of the man in the car drowns out the elderly lady’s voice though she stands less than 5 inches from me. Their voices contrast extremely. Hers is a more soft, and soothing voice, and his is a loud, baritone tone. 
9. As I walk past the local food shops that also house bars, I hear the cheers and groans of the men inside watching the ICC cricket match between Guyana and Barbados. From the accents, I know they are rooting for Guyana. For the rest of the day as I walk through my neighborhood, I hear the sounds of avid cricket fans shouting at their television screens.
10. I stop again to allow a car to pass me at the intersection, and hear one my favorite sounds: a water coconut being chopped open. The man working at the grocery store hacks at it several times with his machete before it opens enough to rip the rest with his hands. As he ripped it open, it sounded almost like velcro.