Jimena has become a level 5 hurricane as of this posting but it seems to be tracking up the western side of the peninsula. We are a bit to the east here in San Jose. It is a small but powerful hurricane. At this point it does not look like a direct hit for Cabo but Jimena is predicted to keep moving to the west as she moves north where landfall may occur a few hundred miles north of us on the peninsula. It may stall for a bit, some web sites are saying, off the western tip, which would mean very heavy rain and winds for us. Or, like all hurricanes, it will do whatever it pleases. The temperature has dropped 20 degrees and the rain and cool breezes feel wonderful. In twelve hours or so I probably will be scared to death and not feeling so wonderful. California is burning and Baja California will soon be drowning.

School was cancelled ten minutes after the kids arrived at school today and teachers had to stay until noon. I finally was able to meet with the owner Elsa about my salary just before noon today. I took a major hit like I had expected but my schedule is not difficult and the place is not crazy so my sanity and peace of mind are worth something. The school, as I have said, is very poor and Elsa is paying me what she pays the coordinators.

We cleared off both our patios just before the wind and rain started this afternoon and are stocked up on candles, water and canned goods. All we can do now is wait.

A Democrat World View

While watching the Ted Kennedy wake and funeral speeches the last two days I was struck once again by the fact that I will never understand the Republican Party world view. My soul just resonates with the Democratic Party, it always has and probably always will. I have tried over the years to be more objective in my views, but cannot. I only hope that I have reached across the aisle to my Republican friends like Ted did. I did not realize the true depth of the long legislative career of Senator Kennedy. Upon watching the media coverage of his life, I have been moved by the telling of his accomplishments over the past 30 years. Learning too about the medical traumas and adversities he and his family suffered. I was multitasking while watching television, like every teacher knows how to do, googling to learn more about the female siblings of Ted Kennedy I found their lives were not only ones of privilege but of dedicated public service as well to the poor, the disabled, the gay population, to health care and to the arts. I think the Kennedy family appeal has in part been to do with their mix of optimism and human failings and their ability to sometimes transcend these failings.

I remember, like everyone else, where I was when John and Bobby died. Bobby's death I took extremely hard coming shortly as it did after the murder of Dr. King. I was 17, a high school senior, idealistic and naive. I remember sitting in front of the television unable to stop crying. I think my sense of hope and idealism in the political process was shattered, although not completely. I had hoped to join the Peace Corp after graduating from college but when a hurricane hit Honduras where Jerry and I were assigned to go and teach, we were forced to give up that dream. I spent my career in some of the more challenging public schools in Minneapolis and always felt it a gift that I could be paid to do a job I really loved and felt was worthwhile. Not everyone is so blessed in life.

Ted Kennedy had the same sort of brain cancer my mother suffered from. She lasted only three months, he 14. The kind of medical treatment he received was in it's early developmental stages when my mom struggled against the disease. I remember how devastated she was after she was told first she could have this experimental treatment and then a week later was told she was not eligible. We were never sure exactly what happened. I suppose some of my emotion about health care policy goes back to this personal experience. I wanted her to have the hope of a little more time she so desperately wanted that this treatment might have offered. I also was grateful for the good care she did have. I remember wanting to throw my arms around her surgeon when she told us they were able to take out some of the tumor which gave her a few more weeks of life. Good care, a wish everyone should be able to realize without the fear of financial ruin.

As Kennedy has said....the hope rises again and the dream lives on. Maybe our country will now rise to the challenge of giving all our citizens what some of us have not had to worry about: affordable good health care.

A little postscript: Alexis has just received word that she has completed all her credits to graduate from Hunter College in Manhattan. Her major: political science! Next goal: grad school in social work. Her political world view? A proud mom indeed!!!!

Patty

This is my team-mate Patty. We seem to be a good pair so far. I do think she is rather tired having to work 12 hour days. Her second teaching job starts at 4 p.m. and she works until 8. Our styles are very different but we have much respect for each other. She is the most accomplished bi-lingual person on staff, but is very humble about it. Patty and I have been team-teaching this week in the same classroom. Next week we should have our own classrooms right next to each other. The classrooms are very sparse and bleak but the students are anything but bleak. Their English is very good and they like listening to my Minnesota accent. I find that I am glad to work in these bleak surroundings because of the quality of the students here, When I toured around last spring I had a different feeling about the values at this school compared to Mission and I think I may be right. There seems to be more respect for academics here and the religious part of things I have found to be a rather positive influence. Worshipping Mexican Oprah and the god of materialism did not work for me. I am finding that I really enjoy the older students and am very impressed with their English. I am hopeful this year will be more fun and less crazy. Signs are good so far. I feel it is safe to be myself in this environment. Have not met with the owner of the school, Elsa, as yet to negotiate my salary. (the school accountant did not come today as scheduled so I did not get my appointed time to meet with her.) The workload I think will be lighter and my paycheck will be as well, but I think it will be worth it. It is my goal to enjoy what I am doing this year and so far I really have.

Class Begins!!!

Started with actual students today after a week and a half of in service meetings. It was a relief. I will be teaching English to all students at Libertad grades 7-12 next week. Today I had only two groups, tomorrow three more. This week is starting slowly with half days for students and full days for teachers. We started our day with prayer and ended it with prayer. I can only hope that all this prayer makes for a better working environment than what I experienced last year. Students and school culture are very different from Mission. What this cultural difference means as far as my role as teacher remains to be seen. Less money here is evident here at Libertad, but better manners also seemed evident today. We shall see.....

Surrounded by Widows

We had our first dinner party on our large patio tonight with Mel and Anna. They have entertained us so often over the past year it was nice to finally entertain for them. Mel told us about the new real estate project he is developing in Cabo for a gay clientele. We cooked seafood pasta and a nice salad. Greg and Brenda stopped over unexpectedly and I had bought a cake for Greg's birthday so it all turned out unexpectedly well! We had had our friend, Mary Ellen, over for dinner also this week so we are connecting with our friends here again and it feels very good.

I realized today that the important people in my work life here this year are all widows. Rosie, my boss, is a widow. The owner of the school, Elsa, is a widow with six young children. My team-mate Patty is a widow of 20 years. I got to work today and no one was there except for Katy, the recent high school graduate from Chicago (not a widow) who is taking a gap year before she starts college. She had come to San Jose three years ago during her spring break with her middle school class to paint classrooms at Libertad. I told her we should go out to breakfast at the French Cafe a block away and we did. She is having the usual culture shock, loneliness and adverse reaction to the extreme heat. When we returned to school a few people were around, including my team-mate Patty, the rest being on Mexican time. Patty and I spent the morning telling each other our life stories. She has had a rough one. Widowed at 38, husband an alcoholic. She raised her two daughters alone and now works two jobs. One of her grandsons is severely disabled. She teaches each day from 7:30 in the morning until eight at night. She is two years older than I am. Made me think twice about complaining that I am too old to be teaching full time.

The air con repair guys came back today as we had been without air for two days. The $50 repair job did not last too long. It is working beautifully again and there was no charge. We hope to get to the beach this weekend. Our maid who comes every Friday, Herlinda, did all my ironing today as well as the cleaning so I can have a little fun this weekend with no guilt. Have decide not to do any major school planning until I see what my groups look like next week. I was stressed out about having no class lists or plans and developed a major headache, of course. I came home today from school, had two Excedrin and a mild tranquilizer and felt fine in 20 minutes and have not looked back. I have been trying to adopt the Mexican approach to life and just relax. It is a hard thing for me to do.

Estuary burning!

Last night, as we watched from our balcony, a huge fire raged in the estuary. We have had no rain and the temps are 99 to 100 every day, so a fire was not unexpected. The palm trees were going up like flaming torches and the sky was full of smoke. Our neighbor Greg stopped over after it had been raging for an hour and asked us if we had called the fire department. I said I could not believe the fire department in town could have missed such a blaze although we did not hear any sirens. He went back to his condo and called them, telling us later no one had called it in. It raged on into the darkness along the beach and about nine p.m. the fire began to move across the estuary towards us. The fire was red hot in the night sky, beautiful but rather scary especially when it started to move away from the beach and towards us. About ten p.m. it died out completely and I felt safe going to bed. We had seen a brief fire in the estuary last May that was short lived and contained to a small area. This time it was a huge area. I guess they just have to let the fire burn not being able to get the fire trucks into a swamp. I don't really know and will have to get more information about this from someone who knows. We are having a little birthday party for Greg tonight here at the condo and our friend Mel is coming and Mel knows everything so I will ask him about it.

I took the day off today so we could go to the beach but we are here waiting for the air con repair guys. Yes, it broke down again. What can on really expect from a $50 repair bill after all? We have been waiting for two days for them to show up. We know all about Mexican time by now of course. You must learn that when they say they will be out on a certain day and time they do not really mean it. They just do not want to make you unhappy telling you the truth: they have no idea when they will actually come. However, we do seem to be acclimating to the heat better, this has been good training for a classroom without air.

My boss Rosie gave me curriculum materials yesterday I can use to begin writing my curriculum. Harry pointed out that this is the perfect situation for me because when a school gives me the curriculum I have to use I always hate it, never use it and develop my own from pieces I find that suit my students needs better. It is more work but much more satisfying and meaningful. The Internet is such a good source nowadays for materials and my dear friend Linda is sending Libertad her collection of tutoring materials, so with all this stuff, I should be ok. I met a guy yesterday at school who teaches an hour of math everyday and I am thinking maybe I could teach fewer hours each day. I still love teaching but the whole day everyday thing is extremely draining at my age. I figure I will just put it out there into the universe and see what happens!! (I don't know how I suddenly started using italics but I can't seem to go back into regular print) Probably a sign I should stop writing.

From Miss to Maestra

Had a rather intellectual day today, as these sort of days go from my experience, at our teacher workshop. The primary teachers went on their merry way to put up their bulletin boards and those of us teaching secondaria stayed together. The topic of today's study and discussion was UNESCO's goal of decreasing the world's illiteracy rate 50% by 2015. The goal is particularly aimed at the high level of illiteracy in women. We were put in small groups and each group had to read and prepare a PowerPoint presentation from the material provided to us by the Mexican government. (the group that got me was polite, but I am sure not happy about getting a Spanish illiterate) Nevertheless what happened was quite impressive. Teachers took turns getting up to speak to the group with much style and professionalism. The directora de secondaria kept calling people either maestra or maestro rather than my name. At Mission it always bothered me that the female teachers were referred to as Miss and the male teachers were called the diminutive for professor: Profe. I found this offensive in two ways. Men somehow seemed more respected by the use of their title and the term Miss I found dismissive in comparison. What was wrong with "profa?" A title I never heard used. This shift in school culture and the formality here at Libertad I do not really understand at this point. Tomorrow the topic continues and we have to study up at home tonight. I just happened to take my little dictionary computer with me today and it helped a lot. My brain gets very tired trying to understand the gist of what is being said, but there are more moments when I float along understanding completely. I find that I speak more Spanish in this setting so far because fewer people seem interested in using their English when speaking to me. My team-mate Patty, whose English is excellent, came right out yesterday and asked me why I didn't speak Spanish. I didn't really have a good answer for her.

Miracles, small and large

Had my own little miracle today, one I had been hoping would happen for months. Betty, our condo owner's husband stopped by with a friend today to pick up some medication that had been left in the frig. The friend, Irma, did not speak English and she asked if I spoke Spanish, I said no, but I could understand ok. Well, she was off and running and I was able to follow her and sort of lost consciousness of the language we were using. I found I was speaking Spanish and was getting along pretty well. We actually conducted most of our conversation with Betty's husband, who is from Madrid, and their friend, Irma, in Spanish, switching over occassionally when our brains got tired. I had gone down to have breakfast earlier this morning at our corner cafe and had spoken Spanish quite well with the waitress. Harry was not there to rely on and that was good. I had known my comprehension was improving of late and I may have inadvertently jumped over a small hurdle of fear today. I was enjoying the conversations so much I found that I had to do more than understand, I had to contribute. Maybe because my comprehension is better I am not quite so afraid to speak. Or maybe now that I understand what people are saying most of the time, being the extrovert, I cannot just smile and nod. I find that if I pause and wait for the native speaker to correct me when I cannot conjugate the verb properly things go pretty well. It was so much fun I could hardly stand it!!! I have to just get up my courage and do more hurdle jumping. Of course I could also study up on conjugating verbs properly.

The weather today is another small miracle. The temps are in the low 90's instead of the low 100's and the humidity is down. We actually turned off the air con. I am sitting on our small balcony with the sun shinning, (this is Cabo after all) a slight breeze blowing and not a cloud in the sky. I do find this weather addicting. I like the way you can count on the sunshine everyday here. (unless of course you are having a tropical storm or hurricane) Last week was unbearable weather wise, sunshine or not, and it will probably be unbearable tomorrow, but I am just going to enjoy the moment here on my little porch.

Harry is still battling the kidney stone but feels it is moving and not stuck, so that is good. I just hope we do not end up in the ER like last time. We do not know how to navigate for medical help here very well yet. We may be learning to do that shortly however if things get worse. I am on the second to the last treatment Baja Doctor Gloria prescribed last May and am feeling physically much improved. The treatment has been a bit grueling at times but I persisted. I guess when one is not well for so long you really do not know what if feels like to be healthy. Now I am beginning to feel healthy. Since miracles seem to be my topic today I would say this is a big miracle.

The picture is one I wanted to post from San Miguel. It is the little donkey I wrote about in one of my blogs. She (?) was the one leading the group of singing people down the street one night in San Miguel and I wished I had had my camera to take a picture. Well she showed up a couple days later for a musical event in the town square and I was able to photograph her. She was wearing a different outfit but I would have recognized her anywhere!

mexico tries to enter the 21st century

The priest went a little long today at our teacher workshop, 4 hours long to be exact. We had a short break of about 10 minutes. I was not comprehending well today and probably not trying hard to understand so it was a very long, long, long, morning. American teachers would never stand for having to sit and listen for that period of time. These Mexican teachers took it all in stride. At one point, after about an hour into the lecture, we stopped to sing a few religious songs and of course there were the prayers to break up the monotony. My boss, Rosie, interrupted to ask the priest if he would bless our attempt to use more modern educational techniques this school year. The Mexican government is promoting change to try and bring Mexican education into the 21st century. She said it has been her experience that if someone with higher authority does not give the ok for change it traditionally does not happen in this culture. The priest seemed to balk at her request. I think he responded with saying that it is not Mexico's goal to be more like the US. Rosie is an American and it shows in her direct approach to things. I feel she is looking to me to implement some of my American teaching techniques. I don't think I will bother to ask the priest for his blessing, however. I included a photo of a view of inside the courtyard area at Libertad. I tried to find a pleasant area because much of it is not real pleasant.

Harry and I finally have a "two butt" kitchen, meaning we can both be in the kitchen cooking at the same time. It is our dream come true and I have included a picture. We are tempermentally unsuited to bumping into each other when trying to cook, being astrological fixed signs and all.

Had an interesting first day at Libertad. It is culturally a very different scene. Upon entering the building the first thing I noticed was a mission statement and a vision statement on the wall. At Mission the first thing you notice in the main office are Carla's certificates from the cooperative learning courses she has taken in the states. (she was a teacher college drop-out so I guess these pieces of paper were very meaningful to her) We were on Mexican time today, the workshop scheduled for 8:30 started at 9:30. I actually felt sort of stupid because I arrived on time. I must be acclimating to the culture. The meeting began with a prayer from our very own priest. Carla was the inspirational inspiration at Mission. Now we have a direct pipeline to the real inspiration. The school setting is humble at best. It takes up an entire city block but it is meager. There is a courtyard inside and the classrooms face the courtyard. My boss Rosie told me that many parents this year are having a hard time paying for school tuition and books. I do not know what this will mean for my salary which I have not discussed with the owner of the school who resides in San Diego. I think I will be grateful to have a pension from the states. Living on what they will probably pay me would not be possible. I like my boss, Rosie, I find her abstract random and probably an ENFP Myers Briggs. See my facebook page to take the test for yourself. (thanks Pete!) I decided to go back for a second day after a Russian immigrant teacher told me that she knows how it is to be a new commer and to call her if I need support. Lastly, my boss Rosie speaks even worse Spanish than I do. She comprehends better, but her pronunciation is terrible. I love her.

safe and sound and hot in Cabo.

Arrived back in San Jose to air conditioning that was not functioning in the main living area of our new condo. It was near 100 degrees with high humidity and needless to say a rough go for a day until... Our adopted son, Greg, alerted us that an air con repair truck was in the car park and we hailed them down and 5 guys and several hours later we were living in cool comfort. We were afraid what the repair was going to cost and were relieved when we were handed a bill for 600 pesos, less than 50 dollars. We pretty much unpacked our boxes and put things away properly in one day as we have not accumulated much "stuff." I really love this condo, so cozy and nice. It is also nice to be back here, so beautiful in a different way than San Miguel. The mountains and ocean views everywhere are calming. You had better be calm because it it so damn hot that being anything else would be suicide.

My new boss Rosie, called this evening and told me teacher workshops start tomorrow. She apologized and said since I had not heard from the school earlier if I had other plans for tomorrow that would be fine, I could report on Thursday. (This may turn out to be my kind of place.) I said my only other plans were to sit by the pool so I would report. I will be up early and on my way by foot to my new adventure by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. Harry has been suffering the last few days with a kidney stone. He has been drinking lots of water and has been taking some heavy duty over the counter pain killers he got here in Mexico hoping to pass the stone. As I have always said, better living through chemistry, especially over the counter no prescription needed Mexican chemistry.

We have connected with some of our friends here but it is pretty much a ghost town. August and September are months when people who can get out of here do so. The grocery store was busy with parents and kids shopping for school supplies and watermelons today. I saw a mountain of watermelons yesterday at MEGA (Mexican Target) and today the pile had nearly disappeared. Some people had 5 watermelons in their shopping carts. Rain is predicted on Thursday. I will need to check the web to see if it is tied to a tropical depression or not. Greg told us last week there was a wind storm with 70 mile an hour winds, no rain, just wind.

I promised myself and Harry that if the vibes tomorrow at Libertad, my new school, are crazy I will politely say I feel a case of swine flu coming on and express my need to quit immediately as not to infect others. I just pray that my crazy detectors are working properly, or at least better than they worked last year.

Micky, we hardly knew ya!

Two days left….

Illuminated towers of impossible stone tracery at night … five bands of mariachis (one at a birthday party) and vocal groups all playing at the same time across the street in every part of El Jardin – not to mention the fire jugglers … the baroque gone baroque in the shrine at Atotonilco (look it up on the web) … a chicken roaster with at least fifty chickens on it – ours came with a Spanish vocabulary lesson and warnings about the chiles …the wonderful botanical gardens outside town, hundreds of acres of cacti around a dying reservoir with much restoration going on …

I had seen a comment on them by some corn-fed broad from Iowa (I tracked her to her blog, which had her picture on it: lots of corn consumed, believe me!) saying you didn’t want to visit, it was just a bunch of cactus. I wanted to point out that the waves breaking on the rocks at Craster or Los Cabos are just a pile of salt water, but I contented myself with Bill’s oft-cited prayer for us arrogant INTJs: Lord help me to appreciate other people’s point of view, wrong though they may be!

… faces, old and young, some going about their lives, some about their business of selling you everything from tchatchkis (spelling, Marvin?) to wonderful crafts, some just begging; one little girl that Jeanne gave a few coins to, and who came back on another occasion while Jeanne was eating dessert, requesting the last piece, which she slid off the fork and popped into her mouth before vanishing -- such a face … steep, steep cobbled streets leading down to restaurants and everything else, and which must be climbed afterwards with a full stomach -- that Triathlon Tours guy is getting old now! … sitting on our rooftop with a pipe, watching the storms roll by over the mountains to the west … making new friends who’ve invited us to their beach palace near Puerto Vallarta … bells at all hours which set off the dogs, which set off the man who howls at the dogs, which sets off the big dog near us who howls for the end of the world …

Still., SMA is quieter than SJC and SLP. And why should a man of my religious sensibilities be plagued with such place names? Will no-one rid me of these cursed saints and their initials?

Well, bye for now, St. Micky. We’ll be back!

Farewell San Miguel

I am feeling rather sad about leaving San Miguel on Sunday. It has been a lovely, restful time here. It is a wonderful place to visit and probably a wonderful place to live. It has always been sort of my dream to live in a place like this. It all goes back to my Scottish grandmother telling me she woke up every morning and looked out her bedroom window to see Stirling Castle. When my sister Cate and I visited Stirling five years ago I was enchanted by the narrow tangling cobblestone streets and old old buildings. I find the natural beauty of Cabo amazing everyday and I never tire of constantly viewing the mountains, the ocean and the desert. But the towns of San Jose and Cabo St. Lucas are not architectually interesting or historic. San Jose has a little charm but nothing compared to San Miguel. SM is a tourist town like Los Cabos but here there are fewer tourists and the gringos speak Spanish, bad sounding Spanish but Spanish. They do not expect everyone to speak English just because they do. You feel here like you are really living in Mexico.

I am actually a bit nervous about going back to such intense heat and humidity. I will never forget the first few days I spent in San Jose. It was so hot all I could do was make it out of my air conditioned hotel room to the restaurant to eat and then back to my hotel room. It stayed that hot until early October when it began to slowly cool off. My new school does not have air con like Mission. I just pray to god they have fans. I know I will adjust ok and I have three new swim suits I can wear at the beach where I will probably try to spend as much time as I can. I do miss the mountains and the ocean. I doubt I will not have to stand out in the heat and load students into their fancy air conditioned cars. I will be teaching high school this year and these kids do not have families with fancy cars.

Guess I need to look for a charming, culturally flowering colonial city surrounded by mountains and desert near the ocean where the people speak Spanish. Or I could stop whining and just be grateful. Speaking of grateful, Betty, the owner of our new place just left Cabo after 10 days finishing up all the projects she had going on at our new condo. She had to put in a whole new kitchen because the rats came up the toliet and ate her kitchen last year. The lower level has a huge patio with palm trees and I know we are going to love, love, love being out there come October. Those of you planning to come down this year I know will really love the new digs. So no more whining, just sweating for a couple months while being very grateful.

Diego Rivera's Hometown

We have taken two day trips outside of San Miguel, one to Guanajuato and one to Atotlnilco. Guanajuato is a city about the size of San Miguel but with a totally different character and Atotlnilco is a religious shrine built in the early 18th century. We found Guanajuato to be a lively university town, built into a valley surrounded by hills with lots of students and lots of traffic. Some of the traffic goes underground in old river beds beneath the city center but not enough of it for me. The city is a World Heritage site because of it's pristine colonial buildings. Guanajuato is the birthplace of Diego Rivera, the famous muralist who became a Marxist in the early 20th century and thus is not well revered in his home town. The house where he was born is now a museum. We were not all that impressed with him either. I never have been a great fan of his, believing his wife, Frida Kallo, was the one in the family with the real talent. My theory has been he divorced Frida because he couldn't take the fact that his wife was more talented than he was. Diego was a big guy, as can be seen by the photo of Harry (the little guy) standing next to him outside the museum. In the museum gift shop there were more Frieda Kallo prints for sale than Diego's. I guess people agree with me here. We were glad to get back to the peacefulness of San Miguel after a day in the Guanajuato.

We happened by a house for rent on our many by foot travels around the city and decided to call the owner and take a look just for the heck of it. We had low expectations being that it is just two blocks from our condo in the "really nice" area close to the town center. It was even in our price range. We were very surprised at the size of the place and I liked the view even better than the one we have here, if that is possible. The house has three bedrooms, three baths and two roof top gardens and I mean gardens. ( a perfect size house for guests) It is a bit shabby but would be just fine after a little spruce up. Rents here have taken a nose dive like in Cabo, so there are nice places to rent for well under $1000 a month. For fun we also toured a beautiful condo complex in an area of SM that reminded me a little of Greenwich Village. These condo homes were in the one half million dollar range and up. They were nearly 3500 square feet, 4 floors and you could have an elevator built in if you wished. Ah yes.....I would most certainly go for the elevator.

I unexpectedly got an email back from a gentleman I had written to about teaching jobs here in San Miguel. I say unexpected because I have learned never to have high expectations attempting to communicate in cyberspace. We met with him today. It turned out he is the American Consul here so he was very knowledgeable. He gave us some good advice and counsel that would have taken many days to learn for ourselves. We got really lucky. We could have used someone like him in Madrid last summer as we tried in vain to find the right jobs.

Both of us agree this could be a very interesting place to live for a time, especially for the person in this marriage who likes nothing better than to yell "taxi". Different cultural events go on constantly in San Miguel and for me the charm factor of this city is a ten on a ten point scale. It would also be much cheaper to live here than in Cabo or the states. Example: we bought a beautiful roasted chicken, that came with a bag of roasted vegetables, salsa gravy, and two baguettes for $3.50/500 pesos in the Mexican Greenwich Village part of town today.

This week starts the 31st annual Chamber Music Festival as groups from all over the world come to perform. We bought tickets for a Haydn and Beethoven concert. Tomorrow night some of the groups will be performing free concerts in the town square. I just hope they plan to stop ringing those darn bells while this is going on.

Musical Charm

On Sunday San Miguel was oozing with musical charm. It started in the main plaza. While sitting reading our kindles suddenly the church bells started pealing like crazy. We had noticed that there were a lot of mariachis in the jardin just standing around so we thought there was going to be an evening concert of some kind and the bells were signaling the start of the concert. (Bells ring constantly in San Miguel so it is hard to know what they are signaling, if anything.) I then heard hoofs pounding on the cobblestone street in front of the church and looked up to see a beautiful horse drawn white carriage carrying a bride and groom. I was not alone as I jumped up from my park bench to run across the street with my camera ready. As the pair began to exit their carriage I turned and saw another bride and groom who had just come out of the church. They were being serenaded by a large mariachi band. The crowd gathered around them and began to sing. I felt like I had stepped into the filming of the Mexican version of Mama Mia, but I did not see any movie cameras. The newly married couple came down the steps to the street and got into a cute little red truck parked next to the horse drawn carriage and drove off. Bride and groom #2 then took their turn up the steps heading for the church doors. A different group of mariachis encircled them before they entered the church and the crowd again began to sing. The church is the very one I sent a picture of in an earlier blog and my daughter-in-law, Joanna, assures me when you click on the photo it does enlarge. I was very tempted to squeeze my way into the church but I figured Harry would wonder what the hell happened to me so I didn't.

On our way to dinner that night as we neared the restaurant, we heard more singing. A large group of people were slowly walking down the middle of the street towards us. The group was led by a very old VW Beetle followed by a little donkey who was decorated from head to tail in flowers. I only wish I had had my camera. This is my kind of place!