A Saturday Night in Mexico
Yesterday was a day celebrating the Virgin of Fatima. On a street not far from here in San Juan Cosala near Lake Chapala, mass was said outside and there were brass bands and a procession. Then it shifted to lively dance music, with fireworks at midnight.
We din't go down, but we could hear it all just fine from inside our house. The people next door, a Mexican family from Guadalajara, were here and partying as well. A little after midnight, I went out to see if I could capture the sounds of the fireworks. They were over but here is about a 30-second file of the Mexican party next door. The wind was blowing in our trees as well. This is an mp3 file, and if you have a program that plays mp3s on your computer, clicking on the link should automatically start the party.
The party wound down around 2:30 AM.
We din't go down, but we could hear it all just fine from inside our house. The people next door, a Mexican family from Guadalajara, were here and partying as well. A little after midnight, I went out to see if I could capture the sounds of the fireworks. They were over but here is about a 30-second file of the Mexican party next door. The wind was blowing in our trees as well. This is an mp3 file, and if you have a program that plays mp3s on your computer, clicking on the link should automatically start the party.
The party wound down around 2:30 AM.
posted by Rosana Hart @ Sunday, May 14, 2006
4 Comments:
At May 16, 2006 8:16 AM,
chinle said…
I used RealPlayer to listen to this and I could hear everything so clearly. The music and the voices gave me a feeling of being right there.Thanks
At May 16, 2006 1:38 PM,
Julia said…
Party Next Door.... does this happen often? Just when you thought it was time to relax and retire... nothing like a good old fiesta con no siesta!
At May 16, 2006 1:39 PM,
Julia said…
I guess I should have said, "fiesta sin siesta??"
At May 16, 2006 2:06 PM,
Rosana Hart said…
Chinle, thanks for your feedback. I have a couple more sound files I'll be putting up soon, so it's good to know they work well. Think I'll start carrying my mp3 recorder around with me at times!
Julia, grammatically you're right, sin siesta, but since this was all happening past midnight it wasn't even a question of siestas!
Do parties next door happen often? During Semana Santa (the week before Easter), there was a 4-day party at another nearby house, which went late two nights, and I think one party at the place I just recorded. Since then it's been pretty quiet.
Mexico is simply not a quiet place. It's a real cultural difference between us and them: we have some pretty specific ideas of how loud people or their music should be. So far as I can tell, Mexicans generally have very little if any concern about this.
Combine that with the fact that life goes on at all hours here -- like the 2 AM brass band serenades for Mother's Day, and you have a recipe for misunderstandings. Or ear plugs.
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