Turkish Parking Garages

I just spoke to my friend who is living and teaching in Turkey. It’s nearly 5:30 in the evening there and the dogs are getting ready for their nightly musical. Apparently, there is a huge parking structure not far from her apartment building, and it isn’t finished yet but people park there anyway because “they are Turkish.” The structure is a gigantic monstrosity that she described as an “Islamic Mad Max kind of thing.” In addition to all the adventurous Turks who park their cars there, it is residence to a very large pack of stray dogs. They wander out and about in the town during the day, but settle down in the structure at night. When the call to prayer sounds early in the morning, and in the evening, every single day, the entire dog population of the parking garage joins in in a round of raucous howling. Irish (not her real name) told me about a memorable night when a visiting friend was there. The moon was rising over the black landscape, and as the dogs’ howls rose with the sound to prayer, her friend was struck by the unmelodious wailing and the moon’s austerity and said it was the most eerie and beautiful cacophony he’d ever heard.

It sounds lovely. Irish said that it’s not too disturbing in the winter with the windows closed, but that it’s unbearable in the warmer months. I suppose hearing that twice a day every day could get tiresome. Particularly when one considers that the first call to prayer begins at 5:15 in the morning. They only howl early in the morning and in the evening--the other three prayer times per day the parking lot dogs are silent because they are out roaming about the city. I can just picture these dogs, these happy Islamic prayer dogs, stopping in the middle of whatever they are snuffling through, wherever in the city they are romping, to lift their muzzles and howl along when the call comes.