[Living in Antalya] Sounds of Antalya

Mornings: My internal clock has become accustomed to the day’s first call to prayer from the two nearest mosques, and I invariably wake up shortly before the mechanical stuttering begins. I love this sound. It’s an unavoidable reminder that I am living in a very different part of the world. I don’t understand the Arabic words (nor, I suspect, do any of my neighbors), but I love the undulating tones and its regularity. At this point, my husband usually turns over and grumbles something about the use of automated recordings and loud speakers and harks back to the good old days when the muezzin would chant the call to prayer from the balcony of the minaret.

Next up is the dawn chorus. No ornithologist, I can barely distinguish one call from another, but the predominant song is that of the two species of dove that live in and around our garden. There are the aptly named laughing doves, with their distinctive “hah hah” call, and the more commonplace cooing of the collared doves. Both are beautiful to watch swooping around our garden feeding off the mulberry and pomegranate tree, which we -- in retrospect foolishly -- planted for their benefit. These appear to be their favorite fruits and certainly keep their digestive system in excellent working order. A pair of them have taken up residence on our bedroom windowsill and delight in leaving trails all down the walls of our newly painted house. Still, their call is comforting and reminds me of childhood holidays spent in a cottage in the north Norfolk countryside.

Mingling in with these nearly idyllic sounds of suburban wildlife comes the screech of metal on metal -- yes it’s the neighbors’ panjurs (the metal scroll down blinds) being ceremoniously opened. Maybe I should lend them my WD40? This is closely followed by the morning coughing session, presumably brought on by the sudden influx of fresh air into their bedroom.

Then it’s the turn of the school bell. Unwittingly we chose a plot of land on which to build our house close to a large high school. Now when I say bell I don’t mean a traditional hand bell; I mean an extremely loud speaker which belts out the first few bars of Beethoven’s “Für Elise” only to stop midphrase. I understand the need to summon no doubt recalcitrant teenagers to their lessons, but the sound is so piercing it can be heard in a one-kilometer radius of the school. Does the entire neighborhood really have to be alerted to the start of each lesson? The volume of the bell in turn encourages the students to raise their voices in competition and soon the babble of inane teenage chatter is everywhere, only to be silenced by the head teacher’s “dulcet tones” yelling: “Günaydın, çocuklar. Hazır mısınız?”

As I am attempting to take the register in my crèche class in a quiet and calm way, a familiar sound echoes through the windows -- “Sıcak, sıcak. Taze, taze. Taze simit.” This particular simitçi, like all the others, has an amazingly deep and resonant tone of voice. Unlike opera singers, he doesn’t require expensive voice lessons in order to achieve these decibel levels. Self-taught it may be, but his cry is piercing enough to reach the upper windows of Antalya’s loftiest apartment blocks. The effect it has in my ground floor classroom is profound, distracting my charges and reminding the hungriest that our morning “simit break” is almost upon us.

Afternoons: By the afternoon, the sounds are less natural. There is almost always the sound of heavy machinery. It’s amazing how many new buildings are springing up, how many shops are being altered and how many times a road needs to be dug up -- for water drainage purposes, to lay electric cables, telephone wires or for reasons best known to themselves. I am not sure why it is not possible to coordinate these works and therefore only disrupt the road surface once, but finding out which roads are open or closed certainly makes journeys more interesting.

The background noise of cars, motorbikes and buses is a constant in any large city anywhere in the world, but Turkey’s fastest growing city takes it to extremes. Horns blare if anyone hesitates for a fraction of a second when the lights have changed to amber, never mind green, or whenever a pedestrian is foolish enough to step out onto a zebra crossing. Cars, hurtling toward an amber light in the hope of jumping it, screech to a halt as they notice a police car waiting at the junction, and the air brakes of maniacally driven city buses and trucks hiss with anger as their way is blocked by a vehicle ahead sticking, bizarrely in their view, to the speed limit.

Walking down the main high street in Antalya, the shop doors are always open (despite the use of air-conditioning units), and each and every one has music blasting out. In the UK, there maybe background music playing inside shops but the doors are firmly closed. Perversely, I rather enjoy the party-like atmosphere created by this shop music, which varies from traditional folk to European and Turkish pop music and am more likely to be drawn into these shops because of the music than the sales patter from the preying shop assistants.

Evenings: Fortunately for my husband, we live very close to Antalya’s soccer ground, and when they are playing at home, he is able to walk down to watch a match. I don’t feel a need to accompany him as I can easily soak up the atmosphere from the comfort of my living room, the chanting and shouting penetrating even over my TV. I know if a goal has been scored and by which team from the shouts and cheers, and later the parade of cars tooting their horns indicates not only when the game is over, but also which team has won.

Antalya weather is renowned for its sun, and for almost all the months of the year, it’s pleasant to spend the evenings outside. We are lucky enough to have a garden in which we can eat, drink, talk, work or read. Our neighbors, most of them Gypsies, do not have gardens and use the street instead. As the sun goes down, out come the plastic chairs, tables and mats to soften the stone doorsteps, (ours included), and the whole street congregates to talk, laugh, play music and, occasionally, argue. The sound of their voices has become a dubiously enjoyable background to our summer evenings, even though I only understand a fraction of what they are saying, and the impromptu jamming sessions of violins and drums make interesting listening.

Nights: The nights bring a return of noises from the animal kingdom. Firstly, the many local street cats start their wailing as they vie for position on the garden walls. This sets off the neighborhood dogs, which yap and howl in unison. A major culprit is our own hound, whose main mission in life is to defend her garden from the invading cat population. This feline and canine chorus provides an intermittent soundtrack throughout the night until its time for the imsak prayers once again.