It feels far away but the strains are close enough for me to make out the shrill voice of the female soprano and the strident choir. Sunday.
It all feels rather melancholic in an almost over-familiar kind of way. Perhaps the shrillness is a deliberate part of the Sunday serenade, determined to get me up one way or another.
The sounds are all around me, seemingly coexisting quite organically outside my bedroom window. Impossible to deny, they march stubbornly into my thoughts, nudging me to life. Each sound with its own distinctness, it’s own singularity of purpose, each telling a story of the different lives fused effortlessly in this auditory Sunday morning offering in the ancient town of Ife.
My plan though is to have a lie in and thus I try to subsume these sounds into my consciousness. Deep, bass thumping, rhythmic and constant like a heartbeat from somewhere in this soundscape. Drumming perhaps. Another church certainly.
From the balcony next to my window, two hearty voices sing out some snippets of “Eleda Mi O”-and the echo is carried by more unseen voices. The sounds of splashing water from the apartment next door reminds me the Sunday morning stream of consciousness is on the move. Church is on.
All in all, I could probably have managed my lie in except in comes a very different beast. The “Igwe” ensemble have joined into the symphony of sound and considerably racked things up.
It’s intense. This choir of revving and spluttering generators at the starting line is completely unrehearsed; a rising fracas of sound pushed to the limit.
My cue is complete. Get up I must. This is Nigeria.
