my community

I wish I was brave enough to take more pictures of where I actually live but at this point I’m not. I am in the middle of a very alive and I think its save to use the word, vibrant, community. I live next to an Indian family, perhaps two of them. I’ve received a few looks from them, but none too welcoming as for me to expect a plate of curry on my doorstep. (Oh the days at Kingsley College in Melbourne!) but they are interesting.
Imagine coming home to Bollywood music pumping from the neighboring apartment infiltrating your own apartment though both doors. Sometimes annoying, but pretty interesting. Add on top of that crying children from I believe that apartment as well as the rooms downstairs, men singing along with the music, people yelling at the other children who are riding their tricycles down the hallway. It’s quite a noisy environment. But I like it compared to the silence I had in Korea where I never saw my neighbors much less heard them. I think another reason that it is so loud is because of the work of the community. I don’t think many people here work 9 to 5. Most of my students work 4:30 to 4:30 or 12 to 12 or other hours. So due to those working hours (plus the tourists that live here) you see men and women everywhere just sitting around and talking in the middle of the day.
Within the apartment complex there are 3 to 4 different restaurants, 2 convenience stores, 3 laundry services (there are also washing machines at the bottom of the stairs, too), massage parlors, a 24 hour internet café and a swimming pool. My favorite part of my building is the two condom machines at the bottom of my staircase that I pass when I enter and exit my apartment. The building is airy and spacious with the balcony and instead of real windows, they have those plates of glass that you can open and close. So everything flows from the music, to the kitchen smells to the doors slamming around the building.
There are downfalls to this as well. Of course the noise, and then the fighting. I just happened to be around by myself at 2pm when I guess the husband next door came home and was mad about something. I listened to him yell at (I assume ) his wife, then scuffle, scuffle, more ferocious yelling, scuffle scuffle…what’s going on…a bit of crying and then the wife’s turn to yell and cry back at him. The interesting part is that they didn’t seem to yell back and forth. It was like he took his turn perhaps smacked her around, then she had her turn and I assume he just doesn’t even listen to her therefore has no need to even respond to her cries and screams of indignation. I mean where I come from you yell back and forth. But maybe that is just not a right some people (women) even get. Hmm.
Hopefully I won’t have to listen to too much of that. I don’t really like people fighting. Plus it’s that awkward situation of what do you do, leave and take the chance of running into them in the hallway, or just sit there and listen. Or play some music loudly so they know you are at home when you typically aren’t? Does the presence of a neighbor make a difference? I don’t know. I mean they have been living here a lot longer than I have and I’m not their only neighbor. Granted I might be their only white neighbor. I think there are some Burmese (not Kachin) families living at the other end of the hall.
But the point of the story is that I’m living in a very interesting and wonderful apartment complex full of Burmese, Thai, Indian, white foreign – yes, yes, mainly males from what I’ve seen – people in a loud and active area. I hope I can get a spot like this in America. I’d like to be part of a community where I know my neighbor and we can at least somewhat communicate in English – or Spanish. I would like that, too.