Of lude loudness and musical Mexico

There are lots of things I love about Mexico... like marketplace bargaining, sodas in plastic bags, live wires dangling from power lines, exposed septic tanks, sing-song medicinal herb vender spiels, and that ever-exciting possibility of discovering the Mother of Jesus over a stool-saturated toilet bowl or on a billboard advertising beer...

One of the things I love most about Mexico, though, is that it is anything but a quiet country. It´s a land of loud cacaphony blaring music, whining washing machines, sporadic whistle-blowing, horn-honking, bell-ringing, engine-revving, silverware-clanking, laughter and voices, baby cries, loudspeaker announcements, plastic bag rearrangements, tin roof improvisations, radio static, guitar greetings, poundings, hammerings, sweepings, window slammings, pipe-creakings, bus gear changes, children´s screams and distant tele novelas resounding...

It´s kind of like if you were to take a large aluminum box, fill it with some bells, marbles, beaded hair ties, mescal, broken pipes, ping pong balls, rusty nails, keys, coins, trumpet players, glass shards, religious regalia, competitive yoddlers, a few live kittens, and then shake the box vigorously for twenty four hours... then,... you MIGHT just get the first few notes of Mexico´s aria...

BUT..., it´s not just the incessant sounds and noises that make this country so magically and endearingly loud.

Actually..., EVERYTHING here is loud.

The people are loud with sincerity, the laughter loud, the outlook on life- loud. The scents and textures and tastes of Mexico are loud, and... even the ocean, the jungle and the vacant desert winds are loud.

One glance down a small pueblo street where the houses are painted bright pink, puke green, magenta, unhealthy pee yellow, construction orange and brilliant blue, and you´ll see that even the colors here bravely scream loudness.

Hell..., even the priestly little parasites that the country passes on to its foriegn visitors can be pretty loud, noise-needy nerds when they´re on the job.

Yup. There´s nothing that quite hollers ¨welcome to Mexico!¨ like waking up four or give times in the night to competing radios playing oompah banda music, a passing truck broadcasting Miguel´s Carniceria propoganda, and Mister E in the bathroom; his rear end fissuring vivacious lava flow and humming a bubbly Mexican song og love, sorrow and loss...

Ahh... yes... the sounds of Aztlan....!