I wrote this entry last Friday, September 28 but just got around to editing it today.
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When will I learn to take my camera with me wherever I go? I like to travel light when I can, but each time I’ve left my camera behind—as I did tonight—I’ve regretted it.

Margarita and I went for a cafecito tonight. We ended up at a new coffeehouse called La Naval where a Son Jarocho group called Yolpakih was playing, singing, and dancing. Our table was located on the left side of the five musicians—four young men and a young woman dressed in jarocho style—so we didn’t have a straight-on view of their performance, but we were close enough to hear the music well and observe their instruments, their joy and enthusiasm, and the frequency with which they set down one instrument and picked up another.

I was amazed when Margarita pointed out that the singer-guitar player closest to us had put down his guitar and begun playing the jawbone of a burro—the "jaw of an ass"! the same instrument the biblical Samson bragged about using to “kill a thousand men”—as a percussion instrument, striking a stick along the toothed edge of the jawbone. And what’s more—the young woman had picked up the polished shell of a tortoise and was playing it like a drum. (When I tried to research this instrument on Google, I found this website listing Latin American ethnic instruments that made me marvel at our human drive to make music with any means at hand.

The group played typical música veracruzana, including a traditional favorite that originated in Veracruz over 300 years ago: “La Bamba.” I like the idea that I now live in the place where this song originated—a song I’ve loved since I heard it on the radio sung by Ritchie Valens (aka Ricardo Valenzuela) when I was 11. My, it's been a long journey--from North Dakota to Veracruz, from that day nearly fifty years ago hearing Ritchie Valens’ top-40 version of “La Bamba” to tonight, sitting in a coffeehouse in Xalapa listening to Yolpakih’s version of the very same song.

An aside: I’ve felt oddly connected to this song and to Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper and Buddy Holly since their deaths on February 3, 1959, ("The Day the Music Died") in an airplane crash as they flew from a gig in Clear Lake, Iowa, to another gig in Fargo, ND. My family had only recently moved from Mason City, Iowa—just 10 miles from Clear Lake—to Fargo, ND, when we heard the news of the crash. Being young, I marveled at this coincidence—as though these stars had tracked our migration and then fallen from the sky. (Yes, I was an adolescent; the world revolved around me and mine then. All the signs and wonders of the day pointed to me.)

Well, back to the son jarocho musicians. Not only did they sing and play a variety of instruments, the young woman and the lead singer also danced—dances that resembled flamenco to me because the dancers wore the same kind of shoes and stomped their heels.

After the son jarochos, a rock group began to play. We stayed for six or seven songs, and all of them were songs made popular by British or American groups of the 70s and 80s and were sung in English. (Music just won't stay put.)

And then we took a taxi home.