The Sounds of San Pancho

I miss the roosters,” my sister emailed me the morning after she returned from her trip to San Pancho. “It’s too quiet here in Northbrook.”

I laughed when I read her message. She had surprised me throughout her stay. In anticipation of her first visit here I was certain that she’d be packing her bags after one night of the local commotion. My brother-in-law would be okay; I reasoned he could just take out his hearing aids, but my sister?

“It’s charmingly noisy here” is my caveat before they and all visitors arrive.

“What do you mean?” they ask.

I explain, stressing the picturesque. “Life in San Pancho is a symphony of sound.” The neighborhood roosters, goats and horses express themselves all day and through the night. Children’s voices mingle with music from classic Mexican favorites, to rock and rap. The raucous bandas, from which there is no escape, play salsa and cumbia with the bass so loud walls throughout the neighborhood reverberate with its rhythm, until
4:00 am. We have barking dogs, howling cats, and blaring stereos from cars and trucks without mufflers. With confidence, I tell everyone, “After a day or two, you won’t notice it. It will just be background noise.” And for us, it’s true. I hope they will be as surprised and charmed as we are.

Daily, a small pick up truck brings warm tortillas and winds it way through the streets, announcing itself with several loud honks of its horn. More pickups pass, throughout the day, their scratchy recordings and megaphone-distorted voices describing to the “ama de casa, the lady of the house,” their offerings of vegetable and fruits, fresh fish and shrimp.

“Traemos camarones, a cien pesos. We bring shrimp, for 100 pesos,” goes the call of the shrimp supplier.

You find yourself humming along with the singsong melody played by the propane truck.
“Ya, llego Sonigas, el buen gas. Arriving now is Sonigas. The good gas,” the propane jingle plays.

And there’s more. Should you need a sink or toilet, new kitchen chairs, a large sheet of glass or flowers for your garden, be patient! There is nothing too large, too small or too unwieldy not to be loaded onto the back of a truck and hauled past your house.

Our poor unsuspecting visitors! Should I tell them, too, about the soccer matches played in the nearby field? I could share the excitement of Mexico’s national pastime, and tell them about San Pancho’s fine “campo de futbol, soccer field.” which lies below our house. “You can practically see the soccer from our roof,” I say. They can also hear the announcer, the cheering crowd and the celebrations that follow long into the night.

But the charm of the racket can be a tough sell. As much as we love having friends and family visit, we’ve learned that as delightful as the audio portion of San Pancho may be for some, others, our own son Steve included, found the charm wearing thin quickly. After his first night, Steve appeared bleary-eyed at breakfast. He looked stunned.

“How do you stand it?” he asked. “How do you get any sleep? Now I understand why you have a siesta,” he said. “You must be exhausted by noon.”

The deal-breaker for Steve was the parrot next door. The bird was relentless, incessantly squawking the family member’s names, “Miguel, Miguel, Paula, Paula.” The parrot has since moved but our son has yet to schedule another visit.

What we’ve learned from Steve’s experience is to set fresh earplugs and a white noise machine next to the guest bed. And on Friday nights, when the shrill whistle of the sweet potato vendor splits the air, we just smile.