Street food is an integral part of life in San Miguel. Carnitas, fruit drinks, ice cream, tacos, roasted corn. Food carts complete with seating pop up at lunch time, disappear and reappear again when the sun goes down.
The gringo version of course runs on oil, has a website and sometimes superman stops by.
The Jardin is the center of life in San Miguel. The Gazebo in the center is where Christmas creches and statues of Ingacio de Allende have their moment, and when it has passed young break dancers and older tango enthusiasts take the stage. Food carts line one and sometimes two sides along with the men selling balloons, balls and other treats young children love. The benches are filled with an ever changing cast of characters exchanging news, gossip or just enjoying the sun.
It is a scene so rich in color and story that it not easy to tune into the soundscape of this lively environment. But every now and then, I will take a seat in the shade and try. To free my ears to really listen and absorb the soundscape rhythms, my eyes can never leave the ipod solitaire game.
____________________
To find my radio ears
my eyes must go on lockdown.
Confined to shifting patterns of
red and black
spades and hearts.
Looking like an aloof gringa
lost in my apple land,
the soundscape begins-
Guitar strumming fades
to the rise and fall of the newspaper seller's call.
Sweet humming of the Mariachi man lost in thought
unaware he his making music.
Staccato jack hammering fill the air,
then gives way to trumpet scales that resonate
with the laughter and conversation snippets in
Jardin idiomas: Spanish, English & Otomi.
Deflating balloon swan song
follows the squeaking cart wheels.
The "oye oye oye" cry of the toy seller
takes the next measure.
And on and on it goes
allegro, adagio scherzo coda.....
On the mountain road outside of Pozos,
the hills are filled with abandoned mining buildings.
Remnants of a silvery past,
now all tarnished,
dusty and dry.
The Promise of Purple
Outside of Pozos is a Lavendar Farm a project that brings income and stability to farmers and beauty to the landscape. We visited when there was just a hint of the April bloom to come.
Antonio, accompanied by young Eduardo, is one of farmers who make this piece of desert bloom.
These pictures are from the CASA celebration of International's Women's Day. It included a theater performance about healthy eating, information tables on health, nutrition, and reproductive rights and responsibilities.
CASA is a nonprofit organization that has been serving the poor, particularly adolescents, rural women and their families, through health, social service, education, and environmental outreach programs since 1981.
Established in San Miguel de Allende CASA's model of “Teaching others to teach” is a pedagogy that has enabled hundreds who, in turn, have affected the lives of thousands. Its innovative programs benefit, inspire and empower people throughout the Americas and all over the world.
To learn more about CASA and how you can help: http://www.casa.org.mx
Spring is coming to the desert...
San Miguel attracts all kinds of artists, new age thinkers and practitioners of various forms of Eastern philosophies. There are circus groups and indigenous dancers. And even a belly dancing fusion festival, complete with films.
Last night I learned the proper Middle Eastern etiquette for showing approval of dancers gyrations - one doesn’t show one’s clacking tongue. Well known belly dancers from Mexico City joined local students in a performance that showcased the talents of 20 somethings - 60 somethings…. Most of the audience was post boomers- many of them students of the incredible teacher here in San Miguel.
Oh yes and that fusion part- they did a belly dance to the music of French hip hop…
Friday night there will be a performance by the “Boys of Bellydancing” - gifted male belly dancers from all over Mexico.
Just another day in San Miguel…..
Taken from one of the roof decks at La Meson de las Poetas.
You can’t paint any country with just a few brush strokes. In contrast to news stories that paint all of Mexico as a place of narco-trafficking violence, there is a world of civilized services and practices here that are totally missing in the “supposedly” safe USA.
Safe, clean, affordable bus transportation is one of them. Twenty years ago, the government abandoned its rail service and put those funds to work to create a bus system that really works. Imagine, clean well maintained and staffed bus stations, wifi, tv and ipads for rent on buses. Here you can you can buy your ticket online with a reserved seat. It is not necessary to arrive an hour early to stand inline hoping for a seat.
Last weekend we took a first class bus from San Miguel to Guanajuato. It is about the same distance as it from our home in Dartmouth to Boston. Before we boarded, a uniformed employee of Primera Plus bus company, made sure the arriving bus was clean and placed new antimacassars on each seat. The seats were large and comfortable – unlike airline seats, you can actually recline without giving the person behind you claustrophia or a panic attack. Wide shouldered guys like David are not hanging over the adjacent seat. The windows have shades, as well as curtains, and the AC works fine. The round trip cost was less than a one-way ticket from New Bedford to Boston. Yesterday’s first class buses are retired to become second class buses…
While American health care is supposedly the envy of the world, Mexico does a thriving business in providing health care to foreigners who travel here for procedures that cost 2-10 times more in the US: dental implants, cosmetic and other non urgent surgeries. In the last few weeks, no fewer than four of my San Miguel acquaintances have told me about the dermatologist they visit here every year. She gives them a thorough exam and removes all suspicious moles etc for not much more than my co-pay at home. I have a “pretty good” Blue Cross PPO but between co-pays, co-insurance, and deductibles, the same service in Massachusetts will cost me hundreds of dollars above the premium I have already paid.
If you look, the picture is always richer, deeper and more finely nuanced–but the 24/7 news cycle won’t slow down enough to see what is really there.
On the first Friday in March is the Feast of the Conquistatdors. This festival celebrates the acceptance of Catholicism by Mexico's indigenous people with 33 dances, one for each year of the life of Christ, as well as special masses, incense, and the carrying of ancient cornhusk statues of Christ around the Jardin. The church very successfully co-opted the traditional early March festival that marked the beginning of the planting season.
Around the corner from our house, the street was filled with Dancers getting ready for the day long celebration of dancing in the Jardin. Little girls walking with pride - their first time as dancers....feathers everywhere...
To see a slideshow of pictures of the day, click on the picture above. Be patient - it takes a second to load...
Both of these guys were within a few yards of each other on the jardin today for the Fiesta de la Conquistadors.
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As the sun rises over the canyon walls, the yellow ficus are lit afire, with delicate purple highlights from the nearby jacaranda tree. Nature’s color wheel on display and a perfect opportunity for the photo club assignment of a single person in an image.
Lonely Planet doesn’t list the Mariposa Reserve in Michoacan Mexico as one of the 100 places to visit before you die, but it should. Our Audubon trip to the El Rosario Reserve last week has been the highlight of our trip to Mexico.
We left early on a Thursday morning. By midday we were in a little canyon wonderland of an Inn called Aguablanca located on the banks of a river, lush with towering yellow ficus trees, maidenhair ferns, bananas trees, bamboo. What a pleasure to be once again in a world of green and to hear the sound of wind through trees accompanied by the song of a fast moving river. And the elegantly shaped hot spring pools were both restorative and beautiful with their purple jacaranda highlights.
Our education about the incredible life cycle of the monarchs began on the bus ride down with a documentary about a pilot who followed the annual migration from Canada to Mexico in an ultralight, and continued in the evening with a Nova special on the monarchs. Millions of monarchs from the US and Canada return to the forests of Michoacan’s mountain peaks every fall where they spend the winter huddled in the treetops. In March, they mate and then die. Their children begin the trek back north in April. Along the way, 2 more generations will lay eggs and it will be the third generation that makes it back to the far north. The 4th and final generation will return to Michoacan in the fall. Imagine returning to the forest of your great, great grandparents whom you never met. Monarch butterflies are the only species on the planet with such a multi-generational migration.
On Friday morning we entered a high mountain reserve where at first it appeared as though there was some kind of rust on the leaves and trunks of the towering trees. But soon it became clear that what we were seeing was millions, and I do mean millions, of monarchs huddled together to stay warm. As the sun got warmer they began to flutter about, clouds of golden orange. If you sat really quietly you could hear the rustle of their wings.
I thought I would come away with incredible pictures, but swarms at a distance are beyond the ability of my camera to capture. And the distance that I as photographer needed to capture the experience left me missing the very heart of the moment. So after some feeble attempts, I surrendered to one of the most stunning mornings of my life and will remember always the gentle whoosh of a million wings in flight.
Carnaval came to San Miguel this weekend. The holiday merrymaking before Lent begins is celebrated with gorgeous paper flowers and thousands of confetti filled eggs. Children of all ages run through the Jardin breaking them on each other’s heads, as well as on gringo photographers… The squeals of laughter are punctuated with the sounds of tango music as the old timers dance all around the gazebo.