The first time it happened I nearly fell off the bed with the jarring noise coming from outside! Somebody in the small town was driving through the streets early in the morning with a megaphone on top of a small car advertising propane gas. Later the same day someone went by advertising eggs and produce in the same way. This happened over and over as we traveled through Mexico’s small towns. Dogs barking, fireworks exploding, horses galloping, roosters crowing right outside the door. Eventually I began to find it soothing. The sounds of a village! The sounds of life! THIS is how we are meant to live. In community, in a village, not in isolation.
Many small towns in Mexico still live, work and move at this charming pace. You won’t find these towns as part of the tours from the resorts, but even if you don’t, you can always head to the nearest market in the center of town and experience what it is like. In Mexican small towns kids learn that the fruits and meat do not come from the fridge or the supermarket. They come from trees and plants often from killing a cow or pig or a rabbit you’ve seen right around your home. The market becomes a celebration of the people and their service or their skill and a celebration of nature … of everything that the land is growing and sharing with the humans.
I don’t know if this will happen to you, but after my third or fourth trip to Mexico I began to really appreciate this way of life. Of course I still want the conveniences and the air conditioning and the modern appliances, but I find this pace of village life a great reminder of cooperation, of entrepreneurship and even of lending a hand to someone else.
And I still believe it is a wonderful thing for children to experience this kind of community, this kind of village life where to some extent everybody knows your name.
