April in UAE

 A taxi driving over a manhole cover. 

The cranes from the construction sites behind the compound’s tall perimeter wall randomly dropping what seem to be gigantic metal poles. 

A domestic worker cleaning a car in our street, slamming and opening the doors multiple times for whatever reason is known only to him.

bougainvillea

Wild ring-necked parakeets screech as crows caw harshly. 

On my daily early morning walk around our residential compound, everyday noises are louder than ever before. Our ears have become super-sensitive alert organs. 

“Bon voyage!” I shout as I watch an Indian couple scurry into the taxi, carrying multiple bags and squeezing most in the boot.

“Thank you,” the man says. “Stay safe.” 

I feel a bit tearful as I see the taxi disappear around the bend. I wonder where they are going. Somewhere quieter? But I expect somewhere more chaotic than the actually quite quiet UAE, albeit accompanied by underlying apprehension. What’s next? 

Although “they’ve” stopped firing at us, we’re still wired, anticipating an alert ping on our phones instructing us to Shelter in Place, or waiting for a bang of an intercepted something or other overhead. 

yellow oleander

But none today.

drumsticks

The flock of pigeons from our diagonally opposite neighbour swish and circle rhythmically overhead. That’s a welcome sound, every morning and evening.

The purple sunbirds love our spindly moringa tree, heavy with flower and fat drumsticks aka pods. 

As I walk the sun appears as a thin arch in a pink sky. It’s a gorgeous 20 ̊C accompanied  by a slight breeze. 

A yellow-vented bulbul warbles on a stark branch of a tree rising above the wall in a villa’s garden.  Cascading over this wall is a yellow oleander with its freesia-like scent that evokes memories of my long-gone parents’ and their home “Rannoch” in Bulawayo, Rhodesia, where there were often freesias in a vase.

The neem trees are blossoming; their sweet powerful scent fills the air. Jasmine competes while untidy beautiful bougainvillea sprawl lazily everywhere.

Heavy with their load, bunches of round brown fruit pods of a sapodilla tree (chiku in India) reach into the main street leading towards the compound entrance gate.

neem sapling

I see another resident come out of his house, cross the road and walk towards the shrubs lining the grass area where later in the morning children play football and domestics briefly huddle with their charges. He picks the soft new leaves of a neem tree sapling; they are golden brown and red. Maybe he uses the leaves for health purposes. Life goes on.

Eurasian collared doves koo-KOO-kook melodiously. 

The ceasefire has been extended again.