Ethnography

Ethnography

October 17, 2015

Annoying shrieks, foreign voices, and a twisted ankle.

I approach the plaza on this cool Thursday evening. There are leaves on the floor, a sure sign of fall. On my way to my bench, I see a big fluffy dog. I see the woman and and her husband, the Johnsons, sitting on the bench in front of the dog. I have seen them here 2 times before. Today instead of sporty clothing, they are wearing sweaters. They watch their dog act silly on the grass and Mrs. Johnson points at it laughing. Mr. Johnson looks sort of tired. He has his hand on his face almost as if he is trying not to fall asleep. I saw 2 kids when I arrived here at the plaza. They are being obnoxiously loud. They are messing around and splashing water at each other from the water fountain. Their mom is on the phone seemingly texting and yelling at them to stop but doesn't do anything to stop them until one of her boys splashes her with some water. She grabs him by the arm at tells him to “cut it out!”. Noah, the little boy begins to cry and shriek loudly. His shrieking is not only annoying, but it even caught sleepy Mr. Johnson’s attention. This plaza is never this loud. About 3 minutes later, a car passes by and picks up the woman and her boys. I can finally hear the music coming from the “Corner Café”. As always they play live soft rock music. There is not much people in the café today, maybe since it’s a Thursday. I can definitely here less hands clapping after every song.
      “The Authentic Outpost” restaurant is packed with people as usual. People are constantly walking out of the restaurant and into their cars. I have come to the conclusion that it is a very family friendly restaurant since many families walk out of there. A woman that walked out of the restaurant seemed to be swatting away mosquitos. Surprisingly the mosquitoes have been very nice to me this evening. I get up and walk towards the “Majestic Café”. This café tends to be very quiet all the time but today there is literally no one there. It is open but it has no customers right now.
       Behind me a hear some voices. I turn around and see the Hamadi family. The family consists of the husband, wife, 2 teenage girls and what seems to be their grandmother. The mom and grandmother are wearing hijabs. As they come closer I hear them speak a foreign language. I suppose it is Arabic. They pass me and peek into the Majestic Café. They say something to each other in Arabic and then proceed to walking on to the plaza. I was watching them as they sat on the gazebo steps but I literally just twisted my ankle and fell. No one saw except Mrs. Johnson’s dog. As I limped back into my car, I saw Mrs. Johnson staring at me. Maybe she actually did see me fall. Oh well, I am going to call it a night. I get into my car and I see the the 2 teens from the Hamadi family petting the Johnson’s dog as I leave the plaza.

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