The Time Bomb

---

Day is slowly changing to dusk and a few hundred people are waiting on the sidewalk in a line that wraps all the way around the corner. Artisans have their handmade jewelry and trinkets laid out on different colored blankets; some hippies are banging away on their percussion instruments with deep, meditative expressions. Others are dancing with their flutes in hand and mouth and most of the people in line are rocking their bodies to the music. Sweaty-faced street vendors with food chests strapped over their shoulders bellow, "empanadas!, pan relleno!, gaseosa!", hoping to earn a few pesos.

Everybody is waiting and anticipating La Bomba del Tiempo, a school of percussion that has a weekly concert/party. The majority of those in line are passing around liters of Quilmes, Argentina's national brew, and chatting with excitement in languages from all over the globe. Today we are lucky - a sloppily-painted green automobile, with a two-meter tank cannon sticking out of the hood is slowly chugging up the street. A man in a soccer jersey, wearing a leperchaun mask is tossing lollipops to the crowds of people, poking his torso out from a sunroof. Upon closer look, the makeshift vehicle is actually a mobile library with shelves full of books lining the outside like an exoskeleton. Strange - yes, but somehow makes perfect sense at this event.

Finally inside and we are greeted by a gigantic, metallic spider staring down past his pincers at the giant open air courtyard that is beginning to fill up. Beer and lemonade is on sale around the edges of the venue and the smoke of many different flavors lingers in the air. A three-story orange staircase, that serves as a stage, cascades its way down into the center of the courtyard. Humongous pictures of obese people in swimsuits frolicking by the sea, adorn the forty-foot walls. The students of this school are opening with a low-key gig, warming up the crowds for the masters.

The first group has stopped playing, the eager crowd is getting noisier, and the beer lines are getting long. A man emerges at the top of the staircase with a bongo in hand and is greeted by a wave of cheers. He is followed by about fifteen other instrument-toting band members, all clad in identical bright- red athletic attire. They carefully make their way down the steps to the landing/stage as if they were leaders of a cult. Their fans are screaming and preemptively begin to dance. The musicians take their positions, check the microphones and are ready to begin.

The crowd falls silent as the tall, bearded, white dude begins to scrape a wooden stick down his guiro, an instrument with washboard creases along its top. After a few measures of a syncopated rhythm, the first wave of drums comes in with a funky 6-4 beat. Layers of sound are calculatedly added until the entire group is pounding away, and out of nowhere the beat changes, slows down, then takes off again! People on the ground are jumping in unison, swaying their bodies, and twisting their hips to the groove! A long, lean, blond girl with a large scar on her bicep and a bandanna tied around her head is dancing barefoot and has one of the leperchaun's lollipops sticking out from her surgically-enhanced lips.

By the end of the first song, the dusk has turned to night, the air is much thicker, and the beer lines are ridiculous in length. The party has begun, the time bomb has exploded, and everyone is feeling great about it.

---