The Way Things Are: NOISE!!!!!!!!

Puerto Rico is a very noisy place for people not raised here. There is a lot of yelling, a lot of use of microphones, cement houses that echo, roosters, dogs everywhere and vehicles that roam around the hillsides blasting information about stores and events. Trucks roam around the hillsides begging you to run out into the road with your gold, your scrap metal or some money to buy pies or "budin" out of some one's trunk.  People here are OBSESSED with noise. Car noise is a large part of the cacophony of assaulting sounds that threaten to break your eardrums at every turn...or stop light. Noise that assaults you as you try to have that peaceful moment of coffee in your home or that moment of quietness at a stop light. Noise in Puerto Rico is everywhere and everyone is competing to do it best!

I'm not talking about the "music for everybody" sound systems, or the two story speakers mounted on trucks that make it look as if the Dr. Seuss-mobiles could topple at any moment...I'm talking about the fake sirens and train sounds that people use instead of horns (which they also use freely). Not that I personally enjoy all the unnecessary beep-beep-beeping, but does anyone really believe it is a cop coming?  Seriously? This is the land where cops drive around with their lights on 24/7 to properly warn criminals that they are coming. This is a place where you rarely hear a REAL siren and when you do, whether it is an ambulance a cop car you do not pull over, you continue on like it is another Puerto Rican in the next car doing a fake out.  So what about the train sound. Has anyone here (that is alive) ever heard a real train? Do they think people are thinking "wow, I better pull over so the train doesn't run me down"? It's not just the sirens and train noises. Puerto Rican's love noise of any and all kinds. Everyone has to have multiple dogs with skin infections and diseases chained up on the roof or in a doorway dragging the noisy chain around barking all the time from boredom and misery. People just stand and have "conversations" next to the barking dogs yelling at each other to be louder than the dog. Is there a thought to move, move the dog or train it or feed it? Nope, noise here is met by more noise.

We had a neighbor in our house in San German who had a barking boxer and a yippy little dog and a new baby. When they had the kid we thought our sleepless nights would surely be over. Not quite how it turned out. "How does the baby sleep?" we asked as we tried to get them to move the dog to the other side of their house. "Oh, if the dog is barking we let her sleep with the TV on." Yes, the onslaught of noise starts when they are young (just like waiting in lines)!

Is It Just Me? Or is Puerto Rico Noisy and Obsessed with Sirens?

Sorry, no photos this time. I am just wondering if I am the only person who just doesn't understand cranked up speakers, fake sirens, and really bad karaoke? In our little part of Puerto Rico there are parties...or maybe they aren't parties...just really loud music emitting from unknown locations wafting around the hills. We think it may be from the little community churches - kind of an "all call" to draw people in and when they are there it gets quieter (but not much). Sometimes it is parties. We have gone to a couple of these parties and partaken in Velveeta and empanadas and even moonshine. Always REALLY loud music and dominoes.
Another thing I don't understand is how people enjoy singing and listening to bad karaoke? I mean really off key to the point of being humorous! Didn't karaoke go out in the 70's or something? Not in Puerto Rico apparently. Even the bugs are noisy. They sit there on their little leaf couches and the leader gives the "let's start" wave of the conductor stick and everyone starts up. My god, it is like they have maraccas, and violins and those tambourine things. When they get out of sync the conductor pulls it all together and it restarts. And the chickens. Chickens from about 1 or 2 in the morning like the stadium "wave" with the ururursss going round the hills and back. Even the roosters get tired of it and do little half hearted crowing. Gives me dreams of the Wizard of Oz monkey scene where they snatch things up...

But the most bizarre of all the noisiness is the Puerto Rican obsession with SIRENS! Is it because the police and ambulances don't use them? There are people who either honk (beep beep) or drive around with sirens as they cruise the blind curves of the hillsides. Am an insane or does anyone else understand this? Every weekend we see hoards of people on motorcycles all using SIRENS to supposedly fake people out? We all know no one real uses sirens! I was in the doctor's office and someone had a siren ring tone! That is what prompted this blog. A siren! What is the obsession with this kind of noise? How many cars do you pass that have gigantic speakers on them that bleat out political stuff, advertisements etc? Even the ice cream truck is a crack up...noisy of course. But SIRENS? I just don't get it.