Week of the Mariachi

Have you ever been to a really tacky Mexican restaurant? Or to a really good Mexican restaurant?  If there was a live band playing (without an accordion) chances are it was a mariachi band.  Guadalajara is famous for them and believe it or not, actual real Mexicans do listen to mariachi music. They even occasionally hire mariachi bands to come play at special events. On rare occasions, somebody drinks a little too much tequila or Corona or Modelo or whatever and decides that a Tuesday night at the staff house is a special enough occasion to warrant a mariachi. Or a half mariachi because a proper mariachi is 10 or more and our mariachi was only 5, or so I’m told.

First, some background:

This is actually from a different party,
But the hat is awesome. 

This last week there must have been some strange alignment of planets because a very rare event occurred. There were about 20 engineers in from the field.  Normally, when I’m in Villahermosa I’m surprised if I see 4 or 5 of my other field engineers. For 20 engineers to be in from the field all at the same time has never happened in the (almost) year I’ve been in Villahermosa. Usually when it does happen, it’s because the rigs have been evacuated or something. This time was much less dramatic. Of our normal 15-20 rigs, only about 4 of them happened to be drilling. Which meant all of us sitting at the base on standby, waiting for a rig to need us.  Now, as you can imagine of people who work 24/7 in a demanding job, we usually blow off a lot of steam during our time in the city. We go to the movies, we play video games, we go out dancing, we drink wine, and we get together in normal clothes and try to have a kind of normal life for a few days.  However we are not normal people and attempting this occasionally creates confusion and strange situations.

So now, my week:

Tuesday- I woke up confused at about midnight or 2 am.  It was mariachi music. I assumed the boys downstairs were back from drinking and playing music. It happens.  The next day however I learned how wrong I was. There had been an actual mariachi band outside the staff house. Confused and a little disappointed to have missed it, I moved on with life.

Mariachi, in the apartment
downstairs from mine. See the
string instruments and there's a
trumpet somewhere too.

Wednesday- This happened to be Mexico vs. US  in a friendly soccer match, naturally we all went to TGI Friday’s to watch as the US beat Mexico and I cheered annoyingly  as the only American in the place. When we finished there, we ended up at the staff house drinking beer when the mariachi band showed up once again.  We drank more, we danced, we sang along, we tried to introduce the new Chinese trainee to tequila.  A good time was had by all… 

Thursday – Surely this trend can’t continue right? Correct. I came to the staff house early from work, around 4 pm.  In full swing was a BBQ with cold beer. Still recovering from the night before, I went and took a nap only to be awakened by the sounds of… not a mariachi this time, but a bandera.  Music from the north this time, complete with accordion and plaid shirts. We drank and danced and ate all night (this time most of the trainees stayed away). 

Bandera. Note the accordians. That's really how I
tell the difference.

Friday – At this point we were all way too tired to continue on right? Well I had miscalculated. The office personal living at the staffhouse, those who have to get up and go to work first thing in the morning and put in a full day at the base (poor things)  were not too tired.  And as such there was a still a full party in swing, complete with techno music full blast. I slept through this after a few rounds of Mortal Kombat with my roommate.

Saturday – As you can imagine, we had mostly recovered from the week by this time. We moved the party this time, going to a house warming party thrown by two other field engineers.  Somewhere along the way, the bandera found a way there too. Making it the fourth night of the week with a hired band. 

Sunday (early, early AM) Luckily for me, my birthday was Sunday, which meant I got to do what I wanted. At that point, what I wanted was to go dancing and not hear bandera or mariachi music for one night.  And then spend Sunday sleeping in quite. Fortunately, I have good friends here who made sure that happened!