Early birds

You know, one of the good things about living in a small South Sudanese village is that there are no cars. I mean of course there are some, mostly NGOs and government ones but they are not that many. The best a villager can get is a donkey (and yes when crossing the road you have to watch out for those, a real traffic jam!).
So you would think nights and early mornings are quiet; you only hear birds chirping and the silence of nature. It's six o'clock in the morning and you think you have at least one extra hour of sleep...
...WRONG.. SO WRONG!
It's six in the morning, they have 24 hours during the day and they choose that one... to cut the grass!! Obviously there is no such thing as a lawnmower (no power here) which is why they use the favorite tool of all African gardeners: THE SLASH (thats how they call it).

The tool itself is not so bad, it's just how they use it. In order to get rid of the grass/weeds they just basically swing it from one side to the other, beating the ground.

You would think it is not an annoying sound (I have been told I am very sensitive), it's very muffled but you have no idea how bad it is; when they hit a stone or just some pebbles it's even worse. and the worst of all is that it's constant. they just start slashing around and they go on for a good hour. It's like when your sink faucet is dripping.. you go crazy one drop after the other.

So yes, I lost one hour of sleep because I mean they really have to cut grass from 6 am to 7 am. Oh yeah, after that they stop and they do not do it again during the day (apparently it is too hot).


A nice variation of this natural alarm clock is when they use the pickaxe instead of the slash and stones instead of grass; headache coming straight up!!

but then again..

AT LEAST THEY DON'T HAVE CARS HERE!