A Little Night Music

For centuries Mexico was a land in deep depression. It was no help that early religions were all too interested in human sacrifice or that the conquering Spanish enslaved the population, introduced diseases that killed millions, and brought over the Inquisition for good measure. The mood was not lifted by factional wars which raged around the country for well over a hundred years, or by the humiliating loss of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to the northern neighbor. Nevertheless, I suspect that the root cause of the depression was that amplified sound had not yet been invented. Gracias á Dios, this boon to Mexican happiness has now penetrated into every pueblo, and happy little San Pancho has an extra measure.

Our first Christmas here (and very nearly our last) was marked by a powerful demonstration of this gift of Very Loud Sound. On the stroke of midnight, at the moment of the Santo Niño’s birth, there rang out over San Pancho the ear-splitting and sleep-shattering sounds of music from speakers hauled up to our highest hill. This might have been moving if it had been the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” or “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” but, no, it was the same Ricky Martin tape that was the run away favorite that year. And it played over and over for a full twelve hours. Mr. and Mrs. Grinch lay aghast with pillows over our heads and in the morning went out to see what the neighbors thought. They loved it.

“En México somos libres,” our friend Hillaria likes to say. In Mexico we are free. Free from interference from those gringos who might have peculiar ideas about sound pollution, that’s for sure. And we know our status. Guests don’t complain—except to the other guests. It seems we never tire of trying to convince each other that we each live in the noisiest part of town.

It has taken my husband and me some years to adjust to what is one of the great cultural differences between the two sides of the border, especially when that difference expresses itself at night. Years—and earplugs close to hand.

Our neighbor over the back wall went through a rough patch a few years back. Every Friday and Saturday for four or five months he went out and drank until the 2 AM closing at the local cantina, came home, comforted himself with boom box at full volume, and passed out. Certainly that was the scene when, driven to desperation, my husband finally went over to ask him to damp it just a bit.

“Wow, he was cooperative,” I said as my husband crawled back into bed, a lovely silence all around.

“The door was open and all the lights blazing. I just went in and turned it off. He never moved,” he said wearily.

This gave us an idea. We knew his electric line led to a somewhat informal connection beside that of our next door neighbor and that the breaker was just over our wall. When the music jolted us awake, we would give him a couple of minutes and then go and flick the breaker. The electricity was only briefly interrupted but the tape player shut off. He never once turned it back on. We knew this was violating his freedom to have music whenever and however he wanted and we felt very guilty about it right up until we floated back to sleep. Please don’t tell.