The neighborhood

Sorry for the delay in posting, but I’m finding that when you have two jobs, there is not a lot of time left over at the end of the day for writing.

I do love my little modern apartment, but now that I’ve been here a couple of months, I’ve noticed some things.

My apartment overlooks a small neighborhood. It’s older and the homes are sort of stacked on each other, years of makeshift add-ons and such.

There are maybe 30 or 40 residences there, and it seems everyone one of them as a dog. The dogs roam free but most stay nearby, with the exception of one who crosses a busy street to get to the park on the other side with the wisdom of a New Yorker crossing 5th Avenue. I watch him. He uses the sidewalk to walk to the crosswalk. He stops. He looks left. If he judges that he has enough room to cross before the car will get there, he crosses. If not, he waits until it’s clear. He then stops and waits on the center medium and does the same thing, but looking in the opposite direction. When he gets to the park side, he stops to say hello to the lady that runs a juice cart at the entrance. And then he disappears into the park for an hour or so.

This community has a large basketball court, a huge community garden, and a large green space where people gather to socialize, nap or dry their laundry. About four times a week, a man comes out with a large bucket of clothes and spreads them out all over the grass to dry them. I’ve also seen people takes large buckets of clothes down to the river to wash them. They beat them on the rocks, just like you’ve probably seen in movies.

It is a very noisy neighborhood. It’s mostly the incessant dog barking. Every time someone walks or drives into the neighborhood, all the dogs bark. And often it’s a long time before they stop, sometimes up to an hour. And no one tells the dogs to be quiet.

And last night, someone decided to fire off a bunch of M-80s one at a time over a period of hours. This went on until 11:30 last night, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a holiday!

But I’m told that all of this is common here in Cuenca. It’s just a different culture that I am slowly getting used to. And, of course, there are lovely things about the neighborhood as well: The little tiendas, the river that runs through it, the dog walker who visits every day, and the park right across the street.

So while I love this apartment and the building, I am already in search of a quieter neighborhood. I should be numb to dog barking by next July.