I love the sounds of village life in the hills of Nepal. There’s always the uplifting shouts and shrieks of children playing, and a cockerel or two asserting control of his harem, there are crows calling their names in Nepali
kaag, kaag, women shouting to friends or their children, or chasing someone else’s goat from a kitchen garden, men in loud conversation, pigeons cooing, a squeal from a little girl, a grandmother issuing instructions form a first floor window, bells clanging from an in-coming mule train with a man shouting at them to keep them moving, banging doors, distant pop music (usually duets with the woman singing unnecessarily high and screachily), cymbals, drums, and deep reverberating trumpets or bells from the monastery, a women invites her hens to eat with an
aah, aah, aah, dogs barking or fighting, sometimes jackals call back.
There may be gurgling from a half-buried black plastic pipe bringing water kilometres from a mountain spring to individual houses. There are bird calls, more twittering than singing, the
cheap, cheap of ubiquitous sparrows and maybe even the bray of a donkey or the twanging sound from a man offering to plump your quilt or pillows ready for winter.
The sounds are melodious and restful. I can listen, contented, for hours.
 |
Villagers used to cook on wood fires. Now 'cropping' of timber is controlled, especially in national parks, and gas is easier to use that is what's in most kitchens these days |
 |
Tinkling bells announce that this farmer bringing his potato crop to market |
 |
Chummy cock tree sparrows |