It takes a while to be come accustomed to the normal noises in Lake Chapala’s villages of Lake Chapala. The sounds of the roosters, dogs, music from neighbors’ radios, children playing, horses clip clopping on the cobblestone streets quickly become part of our normal world, our new "white noise."
Other sounds are more difficult to ignore; these are the noises that bring tourists right up out of bed saying, “What on earth was that?” The pre-dawn booming skyrockets, braying burros, and rollicking bands with persistent percussion and oom-pah tuba are the only slightly less noticeable than loudspeaker trucks selling seasonal produce and buying pop cans and scrap metal. The message broadcast of the bleating gas trucks takes practice to decipher, with it's practical bleating message, "Zeeeetttaaaaaaa Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaas."
Soon after these novel sounds become part of a newcomer's day-to-day routine, he or she begins to note that the ever present church bells chime a series of different rhythms and patterns.
Telling Time by the Bells:
Easiest to recognize and remember are the patterns of telling time by the bells. All through the day and night, the bells are the clock of the village. At 15 minutes past the hour, there is a single "ding-dong." At half past, the bells call out "ding-dong, ding-dong;" at 45 minutes past the hour, there are three sets of "ding-dong" chimes. To announce the new hour, the bells repeat "ding-dong" four times, then there are the number of chimes to match the hour.
The tones and patterns of the church bells do more than announce the time of day, they also call villagers to Mass and announce news through the village.
Call to Mass:
The first call to Mass is a series of bells chimed thirty minutes before Mass. A single stroke of the bell, a pause, and then 15-30 chimes, a pause, and a final single stroke complete the pattern.
Fifteen minutes later, the pattern repeats, but with two chimes at the beginning and end. As Mass is beginning, the third call is heralded by three single chimes in the pattern.
Announcing a Death:
When the priest receives the notice of a death in the parish, the bells toll the clamores. This is a solemn pattern of three tones. There is a slowly tolled higher note from a smaller bell, a lower tone from a larger bell and then the higher pitched bell again. The three chimes are slowly repeated. The clamores sound again at the end of the funeral Mass when the body leaves the church for interment in the cemetery.
Pilgrimages:
When a group of pilgrims (peregrinos) approaches the church at the completion of a religious fiesta procession, young boys climb into the church tower to ring all of the bells simultaneously and joyously. Up in the tower they yank the ropes attached to the clappers of the smaller bells high up in the steeple. Meanwhile other boys smack the big bells with mallets, and in Ajijic, the new hydraulically-operated bells join in for for five to ten long, loud, happy, welcoming minutes.
Watch for this old tradition in each Lakeside village during that town's annual fiesta for their patron saint and on other special days and for very special Masses.
Now that you know about the ringing of the fiesta bells, we bet you’ll like using the old local dicho that we heard recently for the very first time. Translated into English it says, “You can’t ring the bells, and walk in the procession.” Never has the inability to do everything at once been better expressed!
The New Bells and The Old:
The Templo de San Andrés (Ajijic's main church) installed three beautiful new brass, copper and silver alloy bells in 2003. Instead of ropes or mallets, the trio of new melodic bells is fixed to a common axle and ring by being turned over and over with an electrical hydraulic system.
The time, the calls to Mass and clamores, are still sounded by hand with the ropes attached to the old bells. Only Sunday's parish high Mass and special church events are announced with the new bells.
The chiming to announce the time continues all night, but the sound is softer, almost muffled during the wee hours. As they stir from slumber in the middle of the night, village residents go back to sleep reassured by the muted chiming. It is a century's old signal of the time and that all is well.
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