Starting the San Miguel Life

Thursday was the beginning of the familiar life in San Miguel.  Our children left for their further vacation adventures.  In the afternoon we meandered through town, picked up a few groceries, and found that there was a good movie to see at the 60 peso- 10 seat theatre on Correo.  For 60 pesos, currently about $3.60 US, you get a drink, popcorn and a movie.  We watched Jean de Florette, a French classic, starring a very young Gerard Depardieu. 

On Friday morning we walked through town and met our friend Denis for breakfast at a little café on the northeast border of the historic district.  Afterwards we headed off to the boys orphanage in town Mexiquito Santuario Hogar Guadalupano.  (To learn more about the orphanage go to: http://www.mexiquito.org.mx.) Our task was to look at the refrigerator situation and assess the computers.  

Twenty five boys live at this orphanage staffed by 5 nuns and a few other employees.  Ninety meals a day and their big restaurant style fridge is dead.  The cook has been making due with one small kitchen sized fridge, but it is a real problem. Denis, David and I, and any other willing friends we can find, are going to buy them a new commercial fridge.  Measuring, discussions of electrical work – new commercial fridges often run on 220 current, rearranging the kitchen and evaluating the state of the computer room took the better part of the morning.

The opportunity to help is endless.  There are boys who have received scholarships and other candidates for scholarships that need tutoring in English.  The nuns would like to improve their English.  Field trips and outings for the boys need assistance.  Several of the computers are sick, dying or dead and only one connects to the internet.  Little boys need people to push them on the swings… 

From the Orphanage we headed off to the mall area outside San Miguel to go to Office Depot to get some CD’s and speakers as phase one of a long computer project.  To find these items in town would require going to several different little shops and hoping they have what you need.  In the small store spaces in the historic district, an extraordinary array of products is available, but nonetheless, there is no one-stop shopping.  One place for CD’s, another for pens, another for scissors, an nowhere for speakers.