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This is about Betsy & my trip to the Maya Mountain Music Festival (MMMF) in Cayo. Of course it was an adventure, as everything in my life in Belize seems to be!
BETSY & THE ROAD TO CAYO
The MMMF is on Thursday, Dec 30, and so I start getting Betsy ready for the trip on Tuesday. The low beams have stopped working. I unplug & replug a couple of circuit plugs and check a couple of fuses and everything just goes haywire! On top of that, Betsy is not running well, stumbles allot in first and second gear. I find that the rubber mount for the fuel pump has disintegrated so I make a nice new one out of a piece of bicycle innertube. The fuel
filter looks OK until I take it out, and it is full of flakes & crud, altho no rips in the filter. I replace it; less than five dollah. Cheap enuf for peace of mind.
The electrical system has gone crazy. Instruments don't work, GEN light stays on while I'm driving. I'm measuring everything with a Volt-Ohmmeter, and discover that one of the fuses is hot to the touch at the edge of the fuse. I start taking out fuses, cleaning them, and cleaning the fuse holders in the fuse box with a chopstick wrapped with 600 grit sandpaper. The problems finally disappear, all of them (I think) at 7PM the night before the MMMF. (I'm working by porch light.)
Next morning, I'm out at daybreak checking everything. EGADS!! The windshield wipers don't work!! Check the fuses again -- it's not that. Must be in the switch, which is on a stalk on the steering column. No time to check or fix. I leave for the festival. Meant to leave at "First Light" but I'm leaving about about 8:45AM. I have the PA, so there will be no festival without me. (or so I think.)
Betsy stumbles in low gear, which means every time I slow down to cross a Tope (speed bump) but in high gear, she runs like a scalded rat! So we make pretty good time to Cayo, via the Burrell Boom cutoff, which is undoubtedly the best road in Belize right now. Wide well-marked shoulders, fresh centerlines, no patches. A really first class two-lane road. After we rejoin "The Western Highway" -- the main road from Belize City to
Belmopan (the capital) it is an excellent road too, but, after we leave Belmopan, heading West for San Ignacio/Santa Elena, GOOD GRIEF!!. It is not only winding, it is badly patched and the margins are really uneven. It reminds me of a county road where all the democrats live, after the Republicans have been in power for a while. (uh,huh -- that happens everywhere -- not just in Belize!!)
Worrying that I might not get a meal before the Festival, I stop at Caesar's Place for a hamburger. Caesar is a wonderful (South African) drummer who has a couple of wood craft shops (he makes the crafts, beautiful wood sculptures & appliances) and he is gone, opening a new shop in San Pedro. And, he is going to play New Years at a high-toned place on the north end of San Pedro. Of course I'm envious, but I've got a festival to play, so I cut and run for Hillview and get there about 2PM.
I had worried about finding the Hillview hacienda again, but Ray has been out putting up little cardboard signs (maybe 2'x2') and it makes it easy to make all the turns into the housing development that contains Ray's Backpaker Hostel, and the tent that will house the MMMF.
THE MAYA MOUNTAIN MUSIC FESTIVAL
The festival is scheduled to start at 3PM and so I set up my speakers, PA amplifier, mikes, and a couple of little guitar amps. Ray tells me that the Marimba Players a) have been delayed and b) he has to go get the marimba in his pickup. I use this opportunity to take a nap!!.
Before the marimba arrives, I play a couple of tunes just to "open the show" and then we wait for the marimba. When it arrives, I am astounded. I have seen marimbas before, little ones, big concert grand ones, but this is humongous!! Eight feet long, instead of pipes on the bottom, it has cubical wooden resonators at the bass end. It is played by four players. Two, on the right, play "the right hand". Two on the left play "the left hand" -- the "stride" part in barrelhouse piano.
In detail, numbering the guys from right to left: Number two plays the melody. Number one plays harmony above the melody, usually a third above. They use hard mallets, and play with lots of volume and trills/rolls -- typical of marimba. Number three plays chords with three softer mallets; the bars he's playing are reinforced by square pipes which have a membrane inside of them which buzzes as he plays the chord. Number four is the bass man -- he uses two big soft mallets to play bass, and frequently plays octaves, just like a good stride piano player.
SIDEBAR: I went looking for this marimba on the Internet. It is a Guatemalan instrument -- actually the national instrument of Guatemala -- and you should search with Guatemala as well as Marimba. It is actually called a _Marimba doble_. You can see one
here, but it is not as fancy as the one these guys had.
Theirs has "Alma Belicena" in big letters on the front, and they are the "Alma Belicina Marimba Band." (I think that means "Our Belizeans") The bass bars are about 16" long, and of course, there are two rows -- "black keys & white keys" -- altho these are all the same rich mahogany color.
The players are as remarkable as their instrument. .
FELIPE, 91 years old, plays melody & bass. (And probably everything else.) He started making Marimbas when he was 13, here in Cayo. Can you imagine what Cayo was like in 1926? JUNGLE! Nothing but hand tools. Filipe made the instrument the band is playing on. By hand.
ELEODORO, 73, looks about 50, plays both melody and bass, and plays both with real authority. He knows most of the new tunes, and Felipe knows the old standard melodies.
ELFEGO, SR., 64, is very distinguished looking, and speaks English better than any of the others (altho none of them are bad.) He plays the high part, and I think he improvises more than anyone else. There are no "ad lib" choruses when you have four guys playing tightly together like these guys do, but I think he throws in some variations in his harmonies.
ELFEGO, JR, 39, is Sr's son, and the baby of the group. He plays Chords, and seems to enjoy this very basic, but totally foundational job. I am very sympathetic, because the part is much like the rhythm guitar part in a big band. But he plays with gusto, particularly when there's a series of passing chords on the basically simple tunes. The passing tones will be on the sharp/flat keys, and he whacks them extra hard. And the bass goes along very closely, because, after all, these two make up the left hand of a stride piano part.
The music --WONDERFUL -- is similar to Mexican music, and they play a lot of tunes that are familiar. El Rancho Grande, El Demonio Colorado, "The Gay Caballero" -- which is called simply "Caballero" and a host of Polkas and Waltzes. They don't sing, and they don't talk while they play. (I think they're too busy!!) The melody player signals the last chorus by putting up a mallet vertically on one of the bars for a measure or two and they end together. (Victory, as with all musicians, is when you all end together!!)
THE FESTIVAL
When the marimba guys take a break, I play a couple or three country/western tunes. For the later breaks, I have a young guitar player who is more of a boat anchor than a help, but he does pretty well in the Key of D, so we stay there. He likes my bass runs on the guitar and learns several of them during the evening.
Sometimes, we (musicians) are playing to a house of three or four, but as the sun goes down, people start showing up and filling the chairs. It's free, of course, but people really seem to appreciate what they're hearing. Boy, I do! I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Ray is glad that I showed up, to "fill in the blanks" and he buys me a tank of gas to show his appreciation.
DRIVING BACK
Well, remember that my wipers don't work? This becomes a problem about the time I hit the Burrell Boom cutoff and it begins to rain. It doesn't rain Seriously until I arrive at Edgewater about 11:30 and decide to get a hamburger. This is a signal for a deluge; it rains about an inch in 20 minutes. The hamburger is wonderful, as is the Belikin Beer that goes along with it. $6.50, Beer & Sandwich & I leave a two shilling tip. I recommend the place.
Driving in the rain, without wipers, is a challenge, but Betsy seems to run better in the rain, and we outrun the rain at the Corozal District line and cruise into Corozal at 1PM, and start getting ready for New Years Eve. Getting ready is a series of naps, but that's another story.
RZ
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