Those GUYS who MAKE NOISES in front of your house

Men push wagons or carts laden with vegetables and fresh fowl, plastic goods,  flower pots and houseplants, even peripatetic cooking stalls complete with ingredients, plates and fire for cooking! And it's all on wheels! You thought catalogue shopping saves time!!

I wish this were a recording! There's the very nasal one who makes his own distinct sound that goes something like, "NIEMP!!"  His cart is piled high with jars of cooking oil.  "NiemP, NiemP, NiemP!"

A sodden clanging announcing  a food car, probably the original fast-food.  Seafood?  Fried rice? Chicken soup?   Horrible fish-balls?  He'll light up and begin the cuisine if you only wave or clap. There's an old man, actually saying the names of fruit I can understand, "MeLON!…. ManGA!…"

--"ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzing!"  a peddle cab passes, his bicycle causing  a pleasant, percussive small orchestra  sound,  "ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzxing!"

The man with fruits, vegetables and dead chickens hollers, "Oooooooooo, EEEEEEEE, eeeeeeee!!!" His papaya is fresh, his cabbage wilty, his daily takings a matter of barter, and he's proud to be able to bring his produce to those awaiting his arrival.

There is one whose large, flat cart is here to take away old cardboard boxes.  He rustles up with nary a sound.  There are ones with a shoulder pole and two large covered pots.  He hits the pots! There's the horrible high-note whistle of one.  He shoves and pushes along a one-of-a-kind sea food cart with dolphins painted on his perambulated food stall, the horrid whistle shooting out steam from a stumpy pipe.

I stopped for shelter during a rainy night walk once, and one of these came in under the same shelter, the owner smoothly removed the whistle from a vented pot of boiling water, causing  the whistle noise to slowly subside. There's a "plastics" one with buckets and brooms, rugs, wash pans, sifters, trash cans.

There's a charming houseplant one. In the very early morning there's a boy on a bike, no cart, who travels fast, shouting newspaper names. Very early, too, the  Ibu-Jamu-woman's call is  gently moaned.  She has remedies of herbs and potions that will cure your every ill.  She is eye catching  in a long skirt of batik, balancing  the basket of bottles on her head.
 

There are the nine different voices raised together six times a day -- a call-to-prayer.  Ben-Hill's a densely packed neighborhood! This mild cacophony is best enjoyed  at dusk from a rooftop when  bats clip across  the evening sky's short color display and the evening breeze leavens the  past afternoon heat. Throughout the evening and all night quiet reigns, good sleep is possible. At five, five-thirty, before morning light, silent couples walk for morning exercise.

Then, very soon, the workers noises start again.

Motorcycle delivery boys, who also carry passengers.  Pembantu's scratch the road outside the house with "brooms," then  mind your house, raise your kids, shop and cook your meals, wash your clothing, wash your car (wash the driver???) open your gate for you, answer the phone.  If you own a car, you also have a driver, perhaps a night guard.

They say there's a neighborhood security person, who rides the street at night, knows when you have a guest staying, and who wants a monthly stipend for "watching over" you.  But as for me, as a sindiri female, there are all the eyes and minds on Danau.  Diatas noticing, inquiring, and discussing my every daily destination or activity

But that also works, like it did for me in Paris, as security.