Tuesday, August 30

Early morning Adjami

Adjami is a little like a village, a fishermen's village, right in the middle of the city. People keep chickens, horses, donkeys and the occasional camel.

And dogs, there are lots of dogs of course.
We have an alley called, unofficially, "rotweiler avenue". No further explanation needed.
The feline species is well represented. Stray cats live mostly around the butchers and fish stores. There used to be a market, but the municipality closed it some weeks ago for doubtful reasons. Since then, no more cat food there.
And, what's worse, we are stuck without a market. But i wasn't talking about our lack of municipal services right now. Jaffa cats are thin, clever, and there is nothing nice and cuddly about them. Tough and streetwise would be a more apt description. But even the toughest of the Jaffa cats doesn't dare fool around with that other species, the Jaffa egglaying community.

So we're talking chickens, or rather cockerels or, to be more precise, the king of cockerels. The undoubted leader of the neighborhood egglaying gang. They all keep strange hours. But one of them really upsets my neighbor, an elderly patriarch, left speechless due to an operation on his vocal cords.
Said cockerel wakes the patriarch, standing below the bedroom window according to old fashioned village manners starting from about 3 A.M. , at least an hour before the muezzin's early morning prayer call.

The shutters are thrown open a few minutes after the onset of the early morning concert.
It' s pleasant and cool at this hour. The patriarch, in his striped pijamas, goes out to the balcony, where he keeps a stash of floor tiles, specifically for the purpose. (or maybe they were brought there a long time ago for a purpose no one remembers). He starts insulting the cockerel (in the quiet of the night it is actually posibble to make out some of the things he says in his voiceless raspy voice).
The cockerel, unimpressed, continues.
This is the moment when the tiles start flying into the noisy animal's direction.
I don't know if the patriarch misses him due to bad eyesight, or perhaps the-great-cockerel-god protects this particularly noisy one from any danger. Or maybe the patriarch is a really good shot and just want to stop the racket without hurting anyone.

Early morning, still cool, time for my first espresso. Another day.



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