Old traditions, new ring tones - in english

In between Guadalajara and Tequila there is a small town called Ameca. To get there, coming from Guadalajara, you take the same road that goes to Puerto Vallarta, but then you take the exit to Tequila. After an hour and a half the blue fields of agave give way to sugar cane plantations, we are on harvest time, so the air is full of ashes as the farmers simply burn the fields to get rid of the leaves and diminutive thorns, and then simply cut the cane, protected from the fire by it’s strong skin.

There isn’t much to see in Ameca. For most of you. For me, there is my sister Lili and her family (and a dog, that clean or not, always smells wet). They take me to a tour of the local college, where Paola my niece is taking tourism. The campus is outside the city, in the open field quite precisely (‘el campus está en el campo’ we would say in Spanish), with an impressive view of the hills. Later we all go to play video games to the central square and that’s where I hear first hear about ‘La Tehuacana’. A local personality.

Many years ago, ‘La Tehuacana’ used to have a very old profession. Or, to use old mexican terminology, she was “the one who wakes up late in the day”. But years have gone by and she is no longer up to that business, now she has a new occupation: she walks around the street selling the local newspaper “El Regional”. Let me correct that, she walks around the streets talking to everyone, finding out what’s new in their lives, giving them advise on relationships, decisions, job, school. And in between conversations she yells in her very peculiar voice “El regionaaaaaaaaaaaaal”.

Paola tells me that some kids went to her and recorded her announcement and started passing it around from phone to phone. Now that’s a very popular ring tone in Ameca. You’ll hear a few kids’s phone ringing here and there “El regionaaaaaaaaaaal... El regionaaaaaal...”

Ameca, Jalisco. January 13, 2007