Last Night

It's early, 6:00 AM Cd'A time, about 8:00 AM Melaque time. Linda hit the road for a long run this morning. She was in crisis, her heart rate monitor died; I hope she can still run without it. I am a bit tired due to the big party last night. We didn't attend, we just listened, and I gave up trying to sleep until it ended at about 2:00PM.

When I was a kid and visiting my aunt's farm, I thought it was so cool to go to the stack of irrigation pipes and talk into them and hear the deep resonate echo that my voice produced. I would lower my voice an octave and talk like a radio announcer and the combination of the aluminum pipes and their length would make the greatest sounds.

In Mexico, the building material preference is concrete. The construction workers here are artists in this media and can construct almost anything out of this hard rock substance. If you have ever been in a cave or a concrete room, you will know where I am heading with this story. In a cave you talk and your voice resonates, echoes and bounces off the walls. It's much the same in a concrete house. Sounds are not amplified; they just seem to vibrate in your ears in many directions.

Four blocks from our house is the plaza for the city of Villa Obregon. It is a nice area used for special occasions and for public gatherings. The plaza is not the hub of local activity. Most people, including us, will walk to the plaza in Melaque and gather to watch each other. This plaza is the place to be each night and the hub of the village for the locals.

Last night in the Villa Obregon plaza there was a concert of sorts. At about 6:00 PM the deep throaty voice of an announcer blasted out of the PA system. Shortly thereafter the music began. It is hard to describe the musical style of this group. Sort of a combination of ranchera, interpreted by a band of mariachis and played in combination with Ska and Techno back beats. The band had a sick tuba player that could take the lead on any song they performed, which he did on a regular basis.

I believe that the mariachis would play the backbone of the song and the lead singer would perform the lyrics, all the while the tuba and the announcer would be improvising vigorous repetition of some techno/ska beats and rhythms. The songs were performed well, at times, and the vocals were clear and sometimes enjoyable. Each musical piece wound into the next. Each came together via a repetitive techno bridge or the booming voice of the announcer tying the previous song to the next. The drummer hammered out rhythms that never ended and sometimes didn't fit.

In our room, with all the concrete echoes, the crashing of the ocean waves and the party-ers on the beach, the music sounded exactly like a middle school band practice that would never end! We had ear plugs in and pillows over our heads but we could not muffle the sound enough to sleep. I gave up about midnight and laid on my back listening to the music, trying to figure out where the mariachis ended and the techno began. Siesta will be a big part of our day today.