[D66] [JD: 126] [MX] In Mexico's cities, daily life is marked by a plethora of charming noise

[R.O.]

mexiconewsdaily.com
<https://mexiconewsdaily.com/opinion/sarah-devries/in-mexicos-cities-daily-life-is-marked-by-a-plethora-of-charming-noise/>



  In Mexico's cities, daily life is marked by a plethora of charming noise

By Sarah DeVries
6-7 minutes
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Garbage bell CDMX In Mexico City, one noise you might hear in your
neighborhood is the trashman ringing these 'bells' to alert residents to
impending trash pickup.

As I’ve written before
<https://mexiconewsdaily.com/opinion/sarah-devries/if-you-like-a-nap-mexico-is-not-the-best-place-to-be/>,
Mexico is a very noisy country. And at least in urban settings, it’s not
conducive to that loveliest of institutions, the /siesta/.

But no matter! All that noise is just something to be expected down
here, and since I’ve been feeling charmingly perplexed — a state of mind
I don’t always manage to find — by what seems like even more noise
lately, I’d like to dedicate this week’s piece to examining what exactly
some of those noises are.

What might be the source of these noises, you may ask? For the sake of
efficiency, I’ve decided to divvy them up into categories (yes, there
are enough to make categories).


      *Services*

For the entire first year that I lived in Xalapa, I was completely
bewildered by the frequency with which I heard a certain song blaring
through the neighborhood on a vehicle as it raced by. “What the hell
/is/ that?” I’d ask my compatriots (to be fair, those were the wrong
people to ask). The answer was finally revealed to me one day when I
heard it and then saw my host-mom run to the front window to wave down
the source of the music.

If I’d been able to decipher the lyrics with my fledgling understanding
of Spanish, I’d have figured it out earlier: “¡/Ya llegó Gas
Express!/¡Gas Expess ya está aqui!/” (“Gas Express arrived!/Gas Express
is here!”). Gas delivery!

In my defense, it doesn’t occur to most North American foreigners that
LP gas is something that must be delivered by a company rather than
pumped through pipes or wires magically like water or electricity. But
by far, it was the greatest mystery to me for the better part of a year.

Another sound that you might hear, at least where I live in Xalapa, is a
cowbell. That’s right, a cowbell!

The role of the cowbell, which is rung by a person literally running up
and down the street, is to let people know that it’s time to take their
trash out to the designated area for pick-up roughly 10 minutes later.

If you miss the cowbell and trash pickup only happens once or twice a
week (as it does in my neighborhood), then you might be able to catch a
few independent trash collectors who walk through the neighborhood
shouting “Q/uiere basuraaaaaa/” (literally, “want traaaaaash”). Walk out
of your house and wave them down! You can give them your trash bags for
a few pesos.

Finally, there’s a high-pitched whistle used by the person who rides
around offering to sharpen your knives. It’s almost like a train whistle
but much airier and higher. So, if you hear it and have some dull edges,
wave him down and take your knives out!


      *Things for sale*

This is also a big category, and the biggest part of it by far is food.
The way to tell what exactly is for sale is, of course, to sharpen your
listening skills or take a peek outside as they’re passing. Most people
can understand /tamales/, but /camotes/ (sweet potatoes), /elotes/ (corn
with mayo, cheese, and chile pepper), /verduras/ (vegetables) and /pan/
(bread) might get past some people if they’re not used to it.

Sometimes there’s a recording that blares out of speakers affixed to the
top of a car, but often the vendors have simply sharpened and perfected
their loud calls to announce their presence in your neighborhood.

/Agua/ (water) is another word that gets announced on my street a couple
times a week. They’re not talking about water from the faucet, but
rather /garrafones/ of water, those five-gallon clear containers of
purified drinking water. This is what most people drink from in their
homes, as the water from the tap is officially suspect for regular
consumption. (I once asked a chemist friend who worked at a water plant
about that, and she explained to me that the water wasn’t so much the
problem, but rather the outdated pipes that it ran through).

Another frequent noise that I think is more about buying than selling is
for /fierro viejo/ (old iron literally, but mostly they mean any kind of
old large appliances that don’t work anymore and that you’d like taken
off of your hands). They’ll “buy” it from you, though I’m not quite sure
for how much.


      *Miscellaneous*

The first thing to go under this category is animals, of course: barking
dogs, of which there are sometimes many, top the list. After that — at
least in cities like mine whose /pueblo/’s past isn’t too far removed
from the present day — are … roosters!

In the farm animal children’s books of my youth, roosters only crowed at
sunrise. Not so in my neighborhood! Roosters (apparently) crow to
establish dominance and territory, the habit more closely resembling dog
barks than a once-daily sunrise ritual.

There are roosters on my street that crow at me every time I walk by …
perhaps my gait looks like a threatening strut? They are not persuaded
of my intentions by my repeated “Relax, dudes,” so it’s just something
I’ve come to expect. I think I’ll start telling myself that they’re just
saying hi.

This is not a complete list by any means: there are rockets and
fireworks on pretty much any saint’s day, and when we hear them, we pray
that they actually/are/ rockets and not bullets. Partying neighbors
(complete with old songs sung in unison by 20 very drunk people at 2
a.m.) are also a common occurrence.

The general attitude seems to be that noise is simply something everyone
makes and therefore something everyone has to live with. You can always
tune out the sounds with a good pair of headphones, but why try?

/Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She
can be reached through her website, //sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com/
<http://sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com/> and her Patreon page
<https://www.patreon.com/sarahdevries?fan_landing=true>.

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