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| Things We DON'T Have Relax! You won't find these things here! |
Things we Don't Have
A guest told me the other day that he had to come here. He had to come to a place that still didn't
have a phone. He didn't believe it. And neither of his cell phones had a signal either.
And so I said, "that's not all". We don't have garage door openers, school bells, burglar alarms,
or car alarms. No police or ambulance sirens. No airplanes overhead, nor traffic noise. There
are no city trash compactors at 4 a.m., nor lawn movers at 5. (We do have 2 weed-eaters in the
village now though.)
The birds will wake you up at daylight, and the squirrel cuckoo calls at both 6:15 a.m. and p.m., just
after it is light and just before dark. The school plays an old LP record at about 6:45 a.m., the signal
to go to school. They got a new record this year. 15 years of the old one was enough.
Meetings of all sorts are announced by "voladores", loud firecrackers set off. Sometimes
announcements are made by loud speakers on trucks: "colchones, colchones" they cry, means the
bed mattress and blanket people are in town. Sometimes it's fruit, sometimes pots and pans and
plastic dishware. You can tell by their accents where they are from: Puebla (blankets), Tobasco
(pineapple and bananas), step ladders and tools (the north).
You know the ice-cream/popsicle wagon by its peculiar bell. You can get flavors like cebada (barley),
elote (corn), and avena (oatmeal). You might get lucky and have Coco (coconut) or a tiny fruit called
Nancen or maybe even Guanabana. No Rockyroad though.
You know whether it's the propane gas truck , the water/coke truck, or the village garbage collector
truck by the motor noise and the brake hiss. Even the beer truck has its own sound. For all of them,
you go out to the street corner and wait until they pass, or go flag them down.
What you WILL hear are bird calls and crickets, cicadas, owls, whipporwhils, grillos (grasshoppers),
roosters, kids playing, and the occasional dog or sheep.
I'd lots rather hear that than alarms and phones and sirens. Come down and listen to a different world.
Kristine,
Flycatcher Inn, Santa Elena,
10 minutes southeast of Uxmal in Yucatan, Mexico
A guest told me the other day that he had to come here. He had to come to a place that still didn't
have a phone. He didn't believe it. And neither of his cell phones had a signal either.
And so I said, "that's not all". We don't have garage door openers, school bells, burglar alarms,
or car alarms. No police or ambulance sirens. No airplanes overhead, nor traffic noise. There
are no city trash compactors at 4 a.m., nor lawn movers at 5. (We do have 2 weed-eaters in the
village now though.)
The birds will wake you up at daylight, and the squirrel cuckoo calls at both 6:15 a.m. and p.m., just
after it is light and just before dark. The school plays an old LP record at about 6:45 a.m., the signal
to go to school. They got a new record this year. 15 years of the old one was enough.
Meetings of all sorts are announced by "voladores", loud firecrackers set off. Sometimes
announcements are made by loud speakers on trucks: "colchones, colchones" they cry, means the
bed mattress and blanket people are in town. Sometimes it's fruit, sometimes pots and pans and
plastic dishware. You can tell by their accents where they are from: Puebla (blankets), Tobasco
(pineapple and bananas), step ladders and tools (the north).
You know the ice-cream/popsicle wagon by its peculiar bell. You can get flavors like cebada (barley),
elote (corn), and avena (oatmeal). You might get lucky and have Coco (coconut) or a tiny fruit called
Nancen or maybe even Guanabana. No Rockyroad though.
You know whether it's the propane gas truck , the water/coke truck, or the village garbage collector
truck by the motor noise and the brake hiss. Even the beer truck has its own sound. For all of them,
you go out to the street corner and wait until they pass, or go flag them down.
What you WILL hear are bird calls and crickets, cicadas, owls, whipporwhils, grillos (grasshoppers),
roosters, kids playing, and the occasional dog or sheep.
I'd lots rather hear that than alarms and phones and sirens. Come down and listen to a different world.
Kristine,
Flycatcher Inn, Santa Elena,
10 minutes southeast of Uxmal in Yucatan, Mexico
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