The Sounds of the City

Obviously in Mexico City, a city of twenty million people, there is going to be a lot of noise... police and ambulance sirens, dogs barking, the constant hum of traffic, and incessant car horns at rush hour.  (It seems as if Mexicans think that blasting their horns will somehow make the traffic move faster.)

There are, however, many sounds in Mexican cities which are unique, and which almost add a touch of poetry to the cacophony.  If you hear a man coming down your street ringing a bell, he isn't telling you to go to church or to school, nor is he the town crier.  He is telling you that the garbage man is coming.  In Mexico City garbage cans are placed out by the street, and in the apartment buildings, the staff take care of putting the garbage out.  However in Oaxaca, the residents come out and throw their bags of garbage into the truck themselves.  On the street where we stayed the garbage man came three days a week usually around 6:30 AM.  On those days I would be awakened by the clanging bell, and I would throw on some clothes, and go out with the other neighbors with a bag of garbage.

In Mexico City there are trucks which drive through the neighborhoods with a loud-speaker recording of a woman droning, "Colchones, refrigeradores, estufas..."   If you have any old mattresses, kitchen appliances or other household items that you want to get rid of, they will buy them from you and load them on their truck.

Men making household deliveries of large jugs of purified water will cry out, "Aguaaaaa".  Almost every day there will be a vendor with a cart going down the street selling "Tamales oaxaqueños!"  In Oaxaca, however, they just yell, "Tamales!", since it's assumed that their tamales will be Oaxacan tamales.

Usually after dark there will be a vendor selling "camotes", a kind of sweet potato candy.  His cart has a steam whistle.  The whistle gives a haunting, even eerie tone to the night. Once you have heard the "camote" vendor, you will never forget that sound.  In Mérida, there was a young fellow on a bicycle selling bread every night.  He would ring his little bicycle bell as he passed down the street. 

In Oaxaca there are two gas companies that sell tanks of propane to their residential customers.  If you are a customer of Gas Milenio, you will know that the truck is coming because it has a chain with metal rings at the back.  As the chain scrapes across the street, it almost sounds like jingle bells.  Most hilarious is Gas de Oaxaca.  Their trucks have a loud-speaker recording of a cow mooing.  Is their gas 100% pure cow farts?!