Sep 16, 2016
By Pete Baxter
The Sounds of Inspiring Silence in Slovakia
Do you ever wonder which one of your senses you would miss most and would destroy the independent pleasure of travel – take away that freedom? Well I guess most people would say sight, but I disagree. Freedom lies within the sounds which have made my travels in the past and now, for different reasons, still do so. But I would accept the odours of distant lands have a case too.
I am sitting on the terrace of my house – Stupava, 20 k’s north of Bratislava, Slovakia. Sometimes the walnut tree, where my daughter’s swing hangs and is such a part of all of our lives, planted the day this house was finished seventy years ago, and its attendant pines, fill with birds and they get this crazy call and answer conversation going. When the rush hour hum of the motorway two k’s away (only during the week) isn’t there, it is magical. And then there are the speakers in the streets in towns and villages all over Slovakia. Hangers-on on since communist times, these are used to announce town events, deaths, marriages and the like. But when not even a mouse stirs elsewhere in the house, and it is evening, you get this curious echoing effect from the speakers in streets all around the town. Goodness knows what they are saying. They start with a sort of jolly country accordion jingle and then the echoing call and answer tidings mingle into a jumbled mess of announcements. They are from streets all around, some hundreds of metres away. Is this country really independent now? Big Brother is calling and you can’t avoid it. Are these sounds taking away independence here and now? I am still independent in my travels and it is sounds that do this for me. They give the texture of travels and maintain independence in a different way from sights, despite the all-encompassing announcements from all around tonight. And on this balmy evening my thoughts take me back to one post-poker night echoing in the early morning streets of Amman six or so years ago.
Swaying homeward, floating on exhaustion and Amstel beers, the Mosque call begins all around. The streets were so empty in the first glimmers of sunlight that morning, silhouetting some of the mosques against the rising golden dawn, that the apartment blocks are acting as sound deflectors. So the timeless chant that somehow always managed to give an “everything is ok” feel to life there, the reminder to come to pray, starts to envelop me from every side, a three dimensional, melancholy colliding of calls. Some of the Imams are shrill, some passionate, and some deep. Here they all combine, and it is beautiful.
But we are still on my terrace this evening contemplating the sounds of travel over a cigarette. And now the thought train travels to Africa. Who can forget the sound of the African bush when camping at night? Or hippo grunts uncomfortably near the tent, the distant hum of the Smoke That Thunders (Mosi oa Tunya – otherwise and more ridiculously known as Victoria Falls)? And talking of Zimbabwe, what about the clashing crash of metal panels over potholes, raucous conversations in the guttural, clicking languages of the country, goat bleatings intermingling with the glorious static ridden Zimbo-pop radio stations that together make up the signature tune of sub-Saharan African buses? Or maybe even waves on the beach in Bali backed with hotel voicings? Bring on the Aussie twang! Or Carnival in Trinidad? Oh the music! And we haven’t even started on Indian train journeys (“Chai, chai, chai,” so deep that it has a demonic quality to it at 5am). I think that sounds have all the colour of sights.
The way that you interpret your senses is what lies at the heart of independence in travels. And travelling is the ultimate freedom. And here in Slovakia, post communist, let us not forget that Freedom and Independence are still very precious commodities.
Yes, sounds play their part in independence in the freedom of travel. It is a terrible thing to start to lose your sight, you think that your independence has gone, your freedom, but if this should ever happen to you then go and sit on a “quiet” terrace and think about the sounds of silence. Let them wash over your thoughts and draw you in. Contemplate it long and hard. And then you realise: no-one can take away your freedom – ever.
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About the Author
Pete Baxter
I used to teach in Slovakia at an International School. After working in Jordan, Libya and enjoying a life of travel adventures I have landed back at home. For now....