When I first moved to Mexico, I thought I would never sleep again.
It's not what you might think: It's not (only) because I stay up until the wee hours swilling tequila in cantinas.
What threatens my beauty sleep at night and jangles my nerves during the day is Mexico's love affair with noise: ear-vibrating, spine-tingling, hair-raising -- and sometimes just dumb and annoying -- noise.
High-pitched and low-pitched; rumbling and mumbling; whining and whirring: Sounds of unlimited depths and hues infiltrate the environment every minute of every day.
Jorge Cruz shakes a large bell to alert the neighborhood that the garbage truck has arrived. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Emiliano Cid shouts "gas" to let customers know the liquid-gas truck and its delivery men have arrived. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
It usually starts about 7 a.m. -- on weekdays and weekends alike -- when mammoth garbage trucks with unoiled brakes squeak and slam over speed bumps and potholes in my Mexico City neighborhood, offering a free, if uninvited wake-up service for everyone on the block.
"TINK-uh! TINK-uh! TINK-uh! TINK-uh!" cries out a hand bell carried by the man who walks just steps in front of the trucks to provide what -- I must point out -- is the quite unnecessary service of announcing their arrival.
More than once, I politely reply from under my pillow -- five floors up -- that I have no garbage to throw out that day.
I am answered by the WHUMP, BANG, CLUNK and CLANG of empty metal canisters hurled onto the wobbly beds of old trucks by liquid-gas delivery men who follow in the trash collectors' footsteps.
Not satisfied with the cacophonous clash of steel on steel, the men puff up their chests like the cartoon wolf getting ready to blow the house down. "GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!!" they bellow -- in case there is one person left within three miles who isn't aware the product is being sold at that moment.
Much stealthier but no less annoying than his predecessors is the curtain-fixer. Arriving about 10 a.m., he makes no discernible noise at all until my door buzzer rings, and I, foolishly thinking it might be a friend dropping by to visit, pick up the intercom phone.
"Cor-TEEEEEN-aaaahhs!!" he crows into my eardrum. "CURRRRRR-tains!"
Sigh. If I only had some Persian blinds that needed mending, his visits wouldn't irritate me so much.
Odilon Gonzalez sharpens a knife with a filing stone attached to a gas powered motor on the back of his bike. Gonzalez rides around blowing a small pan flute to attract customers. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Jose Perez pushes a cart selling roasted sweet potatoes and bananas. A high-pitched whistling sound is emitted when built-up vapor is released, bursting through the aluminum pipe. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
It took me awhile to connect some noises to their true purpose. It was months before I realized that a trilling, tuneless flute was to advise that the friendly knife sharpener was on the block, ready to rock with our kitchen cutlery.
What I used to think was a clown approaching on his unicycle every late afternoon turned out to be a bread salesman squeezing insistently on his bicycle horn to alert all interested customers that the time had come to buy their sweet rolls.
Horns are a popular communication device in Mexico City. Honks and shrieks bounce between minibuses, sport utility vehicles, and taxis, competing with the squawks and cracks of the ubiquitous bullhorn, used by police officers who gleefully wedge their patrol cars into the middle of massive traffic jams and then start screaming "KEEP MOVING! KEEP MOVING! KEEP MOVING!"
Food vendors employ the wide-mouthed devises to relay their monotonous sales pitches: "Taah-MAAAH-lays! Taah-MAAH-lays!"
Everything is relative. Voices barking and crying over bullhorns are nothing, really, compared to the nightly high-pitched wail of a siren that shreds the air -- and my peace of mind -- as if it's warning that we're about to be bombed or shaken by a huge earthquake and MUST EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!!
But no. It's just the call of the sweet-potato-and-banana seller. Built-up vapor bursts through the aluminum pipe on his rolling cart, letting out a whistle that, to the less-hysterical ears of a friend of mine, sounds like a factory letting out for the night.
With vocal chords and guitars at hand, musicians play at a street cafe. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Don't get me wrong. I'm not the kind of person who needs to sit in a soundproof library with only a ticking grandfather clock by my side.
I like to hang out in the noisy cafes despite -- and sometimes because of -- the wandering guitarists and organ grinders, even though one note is enough to tell you that many of them should find another job.
And I just had to smile several years ago when I was blasted out of bed about 4 a.m. by a band of mariachis regaling a drunken birthday party that had spilled into the street from the all-night taco restaurant (a feeding center for alcohol-saturated club-hoppers).
After all, where else would a band of trumpets, violins and guitars land on your doorstep?
On nights like this, I realize I'm living in a place where people really know how to celebrate life. So what if it's 20 decibels louder than what I'm accustomed to?
I start to draw the line, however, when cats start skinning each other alive outside my window, which is what I am convinced is taking place every time the man selling "El Gato," or "Cat," lottery tickets strolls past with his special feline-imitating whistle. "MRRRR-WOOOOW," he pleads. "El GAHHHH-TOOOOOOOOE! MEEEE-YOWWWWWWWWWWWWW!"
The aforementioned whistle, by the way, is widely available to the public, thanks to enterprising street merchants doing their part to ensure we all contribute our share to the noise pollution of this 18-million-strong metropolis.
Fighting winds, a balloon salesman whistles as he tries to get people's attention. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Did I mention the delivery boys that set out in my neighborhood every afternoon on mufflerless motorcycles, their whining engines shredding the air like chain saws as they deliver their pizzas and tacos in 45 minutes or less?
From a distance, the two-wheeled traveling machines sound like angry bees let out of an overpopulated hive -- just loud enough to drown out a telephone chat you might be having INSIDE your house.
Alas, the "motos" are NOT powerful enough to neutralize the blast and throb of an off-key trumpet and accompanying base drum "played" by the cowboy-hat-wearing duo that terrorizes my neighborhood on weekend afternoons.
Most Mexicans don't seem bothered at all by these noises; in fact, they seem to crave them.
Stores routinely blast loud music over outside loudspeakers to attract customers, and even such mundane tasks as backing a car out of a parking space can't be accomplished without the one-man-band attendant who simultaneously whistles and thumps his hand on your trunk to let you know you aren't going to hit anything.
Except a wall of sound, that is.
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asap contributor Lisa J. Adams, an AP correspondent in Mexico, has lived happily, if somewhat dazed, in her Mexico City neighborhood for the past six years.
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