The Rooster
By Paul Lyons
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PART I
I remember when I was in college, years ago, and one morning woke to the sound of my cheap red alarm clock. It was a sound that would wake up anyone within a hundred yards. Thinking back on that sound, it seemed more like the sort of sound that one would hear when there was an emergency – line up in single file, head directly to the nearest exit, do not panic. I hit the off lever, as that was the only feature on the piece of crap, and lay in bed with a splitting headache.
It was a weekend morning, and I remember not if I had been out partying the night before, but I woke to that sound and thought: I am going to kill that thing. But there is no way of getting even with an alarm clock. It has already won. You are awake. I looked at this cheap clock with its attempt to be modern and digital; it had those flip cards for numbers that would flip over every minute and on the hour, and thought - what I need is an alarm clock that plays music in the morning. Sweet music. I could set it at a low volume and wake up the way people do in Guatemala. Birds in the trees. Perhaps the gentle ring of a bell on some docile milk-producing creature, making its way out in to a nearby field.
So I got out of bed and did not even change cloths. I was in sweat pants and a t-shirt. I got in my crappy car, held together with duct tape, and headed out into the bright sun, determined to find that magical alarm clock of my dreams.
I found it in one of those huge department stores in a new mall by the Interstate Highway. Made by General Electric, it featured AM/FM radio, sleep and snooze setting - in case you found out in your dream that the boss did not need you in until thirty minutes later than usual. I took it home. It changed my life.
I still have that alarm clock and it still works. I keep on thinking that I should get a new one that can do cooler things like play MP3s, but why bother. The only problem with the old clock of my dreams is that you have to go completely around the 24-hour cycle to reset to an earlier time and in the process your index finger can loose circulation. It turns out that the newer clocks still have this annoying feature. The other problem is more bizarre. The clock sometimes will jump back two minutes and then jump ahead three. I am beginning to think that maybe the clock has taken the theory of relativity to a new level. It is postulating on a new time-space continuum.
PART II
In Guatemala, the coffee is terrible. Most Guatemalans version of coffee is either a hot cup of water or hot questionable milk and a jar of the instant stuff. Often the whole concoction is disguised with a few heaping spoonfuls of sugar. So if you want the real Guatemala organic stuff, check out some coffee chain in the U.S. They have the good stuff.
But it really does not matter. You don’t need coffee to wake up in Guatemala. In fact most Guatemalan’s are awake so damn early in the morning, that is why they all close shop and take a break in the middle of the day. It has nothing to do with the noonday sun or the heat. In the Western Highlands, it usually gets colder around noon anyway.
The wake up procedure usually starts with the roosters. Once one wakes up and declares his self-worth and virility to the world, they all get into the action. It is a lot like a bunch of ten-year old boys on a birthday sleepover. Once one wakes up a 5 AM to go pee and stumbles over another on the way to the potty, the entire house is doomed.
So the procedure usually starts with the roosters but that is not often the case. It usually begins with the firecrackers. Do not try to explain to me why someone would light multiple packs of firecrackers before the sun has even changed the color of the sky, but that this is a usual morning. Could it be that the person just plain gave up on the coffee and decided that instead he would use loud noises as an early morning stimulant? “Honey that first pack did not do the trick. I am still having a hard time getting up. Can you light two more and this time make sure they are right under my feet.” Or could this lighting of firecrackers before dawn be an ancient Mayan tradition that the great archeologists have over looked? See there was contact with China in the ancient times! Or could it just be a gradual voluntary depletion of arms from the recent civil war?
One really early morning, the firecrackers started to go off. I was lying in bed just trying to stay clam so that I could possibly get back to sleep after the morning ritual had subsided. But this time, the firecrackers just kept going. It got to the point where I started to try to figure out if they were sold in packs of 20, 25 or 50. One pack would go followed by another pack, followed by another pack. In the end the guy could have used this cache for some serious silver mining. When it finally subsided, I closed my eyes and tried to get back to sleep. But this is the thing with the morning ritual – it always wakes up at least one rooster.
PART III
The reason for the early morning firecrackers has been discerned. It is merely due to a birthday. If it is your birthday in Guatemala, it is only appropriate that you let the whole world know and light off as many packs of firecrackers as possible as early in the morning as possible. So early, even the people who have to travel to the next town for work will know that today is a special day. Your birthday.
Now if a town has greater than 365 people and if these people happen to have birthdays on different days, well folks, do not worry about buying an alarm clock. You are getting up whether you like it or not.
I am not sure how long this tradition has been going on but there obviously are no laws condemning its practice. In the end, I have realized that there would be no reason for outlawing the practice; an alert populace is a productive populace. If fact, I would wager that the GNP of the country would drop significantly if this early morning lighting of firecrackers were outlawed.
March 26, 2006
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