Viva Mexico!

Yesterday was El Dia de la Independencia, September 16.  It celebrates Mexico's own Declaration of Independence from Spain.  It started in Dolores (now Dolores Hidalgo) in 1810 when Miguel Hidalgo, leader of the revolutionaries, gathered everyone in the plaza and, standing on the steps of the church, issued EL Grito, the cry of independence.  That began their war of independence that didn't end until 1821.

Now every year, at 11:00 pm in every municipality, state, and of course in Mexico City, the leaders of those areas re-issue El Grito in commemoration.  We watched the fireworks Friday night from our bedroom terrace, but here's a drone video of the celebrations in the Ajijic plaza, just four blocks from us.

Pueblo Magico




The words of El Grito,

"Viva los héroes que nos dieron Patria , Viva Hidalgo, Viva Morelos, Viva Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, Viva Aldama, Viva Matamoros, Viva Nuestra Independencia, Viva México, Viva México, Viva México."

This afternoon, we're going to walk down to the plaza to see the new art show and then watch the ladies' rebozo parade.  I just checked our old posts and found the post from September 11, 2007 when we went to the Muestra del Rebozos.  The link to other pictures doesn't work any more, but maybe I'll post some of those and some new ones later on.

Just another Monday

And Monday seems to be the slowest day of the week for us.  Maybe I can be disciplined enough to blog once a week.

We've had really rainy weather now for almost two weeks.  It is rainy season but that usually means wonderful, dramatic thunderstorms--almost always in the middle of the night or very early morning--and we wake up to bright sunny days with few if any clouds.  This rainy season has been very different.  It started off with high drama for a few evenings, but then things slowed down.  The forecast was for a drier rainy season this year, and that has pretty much proven true until the last couple of weeks, when we've had nonstop cloudy, rainy days.  It's always cool and pleasant during rainy season but this continued rainy, cloudy weather has kept the temps in the 60s some days.  We even turned on one of the gas fireplaces last week while we were reading.  Then we fell asleep over our Kindles because it was so toasty and warm.

Today, I prepped for my class Friday. I'm going to have two new observers who may decide to be teaching assistants for the class, so I want to make sure everybody has plenty to do.  Ros (Rosalind) is from England (by way of South Africa), and she and her husband have moved down here after driving all around Mexico for 4-5 months. It wasn't difficult for Gerald who just retired from Thomson Reuters as a GIS (huh?). "A geographic information system (GIS) is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present spatial or geographic data."  Coo!  I should have been one of those, except it didn't exist way back when.

Yesterday, we actually had a break in the weather with an absolutely perfect day.  Good thing because we had planned a lunch and game day for 8 of us.  What I had planned to be from about 1-5 actually didn't break up until nearly 8 when the light was beginning to fade. We learned a new word/phrase from Ros, who speaks Afrikaans from her days in South Africa.  She called yesterday  a leckker jol

Jol - Party/Piss-up/Rave. 
Lekker - Good/Excellent. 
An Afrikaans Phrase, usually meaning to go out and get trashed or going on a piss up!

"It was a leckker jol(I can't remember ANYTHING!)" 
"Thats gonna be a leckker jol!" 

It wasn't quite the "piss up" as described above--more like the "craic" Mel experienced in Ireland.

Saturday we got up and went to shul like good little Jews because the last time I missed (Bob was there), there were only 6 people.  So guilt got us out of bed and down the road to Riberas.  Afterward, we dashed to Walmart for some fresh veggies, to the Scandinavian bakery for yummy sourdough bread, and then to the deli (yes, we have a deli) for turkey, roast beef, and ham to have a make-your-own-sandwich lunch for yesterday.  Then we drove out to La Reserva to play bridge all afternoon with Helena and Jim and eat dinner at their house.

I'm working backwards in the week, trying to remember Friday.  Oh, I went to Jan's house and we had lunch and played Rummikub.  Friday night I think we stayed home.  Thursday I taught a class for a friend who's away in Mexico City, and then that evening we went to a fundraiser at Avocado Club (where we had brunch all together), yummy menu and jazz group from Guadalajara, who are really French and sang and played my favorite jazz manouche-style music.  And we danced. They're called Les Femmes de Serge. The woman in black at the microphone is blind.  Lovely voice. We're hoping to go see them again Guadalajara some time.

So, the sun is trying to come out but it's still mostly overcast.  Evidently, there's been a tropical storm sitting off the coast of Puerto Vallarta that has brought the rain, but we have no doubt the sun will come out again.

I'm going to go read some, and then we'll have more sandwiches for dinner.  We've found frozen GF baguettes at Superlake, so we buy more every time we're there to make sure he doesn't run out.  Tomorrow we're going to go to Tlaquepaque for the day with Shari and Rob.  Always love going there.  Such a pretty section of Guadalajara, with the brick pedestrian streets and beautiful shops and nice restaurants.

There's a little map in my head and I can see Susannah and John driving across the middle of the country right now.  Hope they're having fun.

Mount Garcia

Yesterday morning we woke up to a beautiful, clear morning with a cool refreshing breeze.  We took our coffee back upstairs to enjoy the view over the village, the lake, and the mountains beyond. I noticed the cloud formation sitting right on top of Mt. Garcia, looking like smoke from the volcano it was once upon a time.  I remembered some folklore from when we were here several years ago.  The saying goes that when the clouds are sitting on top of Mt. Garcia, expect rain.  

Sure enough, we woke up this morning to the most unusual weather--a cloudy, rainy day.  All day we've had periods of off and on rain, sometimes light showers, sometimes a steady downpour, a little thunder off in one direction.   But no sunshine all day--nice and cozy for staying in and reading.

Good day

No particular reason why.  It's just seemed like the kind of ordinary day I'd like to have more often.

Right now, doing one of my favorite things: cooking risotto (and soon, shrimp), listening to Pandora.  I was missing it so much, but then we realized that Roku lets us stream it even though we're in Mexico. So, since we moved the TV into what was the dining room (along with a couch and tirned the dining room table sideways), I can cook and dance while listening to my favorite Pandora stations.  And, yes, I'm listening to my Michael Buble station.  But what really prompted my blog was hearing three Dean Martin songs and thinking of you, Z and M. Mellow.

After major storms, three nights on a row over a week ago, we all thought, with great relief, that the rainy season had commenced.  It's been really hot. Then we had nothing for over a week and the temperature eased up to 90.  It's not as bad as 90 in KY because the humidity is so low--like 20%, but still hot.  We can sleep at night with the fan and some breeze.  But last night, a wonderful storm blew up over the lake and we had those cooling breezes.  Looks like it might happen again tonight.  Hope so.

The thundershirt seems to be helping Howdy.  He's hanging in there although he's decided that the stairs to our bedroom just aren't wide enough for him to traverse them the way he does the wide garden steps.  Every day we still have with him feels like a special gift.  He's been such a good old dog.

Some of the oldies music--like Bing Crosby and Glenn Miller--has made me think about my mother.  She loved music, loved to sing, and she had a beautiful soprano voice.  Growing up, I always thought my mother had the most beautiful voice in the world.  She couldn't dance, as in "real" dancing.  In the family she grew up in, dancing just wasn't allowed.  But she would jiggle and bounce around to music on the radio.  That was the bubbly part of her personality that I loved.  When she lost some of her inhibitions, she could be really funny.  I wish you all could have know her.

Ok.  Risotto's done!

Talking to Gaby this morning

Gaby and I are looking at 10 years worth of posts. (Gasp!)  We just watched a video of her at 2 years old. (See December 2007).  Her Aunt Zannah and Uncle John had sent her a pop-up Diego's school bus for Hanukkah that year.  Bob and I were renting a condo in Fairhope for two months.  Now we're looking at the blog posts so Gaby can think about setting up her own blog to chronicle her month-long trip to Paris with her mom.

We're sitting on the couch where she slept over last night.  She's playing a game on my iPad called Color Switch while I'm competing for her attention.  I know.  I haven't got a chance.

GABY WAS HERE!!!!!!!!!

I have SERIOUS bedhead issues! It's not even funny.




                                                                     

The Day Got Brighter After All

Friday, after depressing myself by watching too much inauguration stuff, I distracted myself by reviewing my plans for my English class later that afternoon.  You may remember that I'm teaching a Conversational English class for high school students.  Here the high schools are called Preparatorios, or Prepa for short.  There is a Prepa in Chapala, about 5 miles east of Ajijic, and another is in Jocotopec, about 10 miles to the west.  And I think those are the only two around the lake.  At least one of my students lives on the south side of the lake and has a very long bus trip to get to the Jocotopec Prepa.  They're public schools and tuition is free, but the students are responsible for their uniforms, books, and other supplies.  For some families, those expenses are too high.  So a few years ago a Canadian woman, Pat Baxter, started a group, called Pathways, to have people "adopt" a student for a year.  This means that people donate money to cover those extra expenses (about $135) .  This year, starting last summer, someone donated enough money to create conversational English classes. If you go here, you'll see a picture of me (terrible pic) teaching in our tiny classroom.  I have about 10 students and a bilingual assistant. You can see Claudio in that same picture.

To qualify for the program, students have to have and maintain an overall grade average of 85%.  All of them want to go on to university.  They're very focused on learning and are fully engaged. No students are bored or inattentive.  Because of course, if their grades fall or they don't participate, there are dozens more students waiting to take their places.  Anyway, initially they were fairly shy and reserved, but after about two months of our class, they've completely loosened up, and we have such a great time.  I think it's like being on stage and feeling the audience is completely with you.  For me, it's exhilarating.

So Friday I wore all black and explained to the students that I was in mourning because of the inauguration.  They were totally on board with that and contributed their thoughts about the impact of his presidency on Mexico, the US, and the rest of the world.  They're quite well informed and were right on the mark as far as trade, tariffs, the wall, of course, and world economy in general.  (One student called him "evil."  About halfway through the class, I saw and heard dozens of children racing down the street, a real stampede.  My first startled thought was, Are they running from the bulls?!! But we walked out onto the sidewalk, and behind the children was a parade coming down the street.  Friday was El Dia de Santo Sebastien, the patron saint of the neighborhood where our class is and where we live.  The parade consisted of lots and lots of men with face paint, dressed as women with gigantic boobs.  They were throwing confetti and candy to everybody alongside.  Then came the saint himself, carried on a palanquin.  He was being paraded throughout the barrio so everybody could see him.  Normally, he stays locked up in a case in the Ajijic Centro Cultural.  After St. S, came a straggly brass band of sorts, then Indios in costume.  Most of them were pretty impressive except for one fat guy who should NOT have been wearing the skimpy loincloth thingy he was wearing.  I had left my phone inside on the desk, but I asked some students to take some pics with their phones.  I hope to get a couple to share.

So, after the parade, we even managed to get back to class.  They were writing dialogues based on their everyday lives, and they were hilarious.  Such a funny sense of humor.  One boy's dialogue with another boy was complaining about how he couldn't get a girl to like him.  They're learning English and I'm learning even more Spanish, I think.

Anyway, after class, I started walking home--two blocks, five minutes.  As I was walking on the sidewalk along the carretera, a man was coming toward me--gringo, long hair braided in back, with guitar slung over his shoulder.  As he got even with me, he said, "Good choice of outfit for today!"  Completely surprised me that anyone else noticed my mourning clothes.

But the day wasn't over yet.  We had met a couple the week before at the Friday service and potluck at the synagogue and arranged to go out to dinner with them. So Sandy and Linda came here, we had a glass of wine, showed them the house (always the same reaction--OMG!), then walked over to Pedro's, a couple of blocks away.  Pedro/Peter is Canadian but he's cooked and opened restaurants all over the world--a traveling man. His latest place here is particularly convenient for us, but we also like the consistency of the food quality, and the ambience.  So many restaurants here have NO ambience.  Inside the restaurant, there are booklined walls and fireplaces.  And that area leads out to an enclosed garden courtyard--very pretty,even romantic! So we had a good dinner, good conversation, but the evening wasn't over yet.

Our neighborhood saint had made his way to the same street Pedro's is on, one street over from ours. So, walking back to the house, we stopped at the corner that had been blocked off for the mariachi band, decorations, and lights--brilliant blue lights that sort of got in the way of good pictures.  Nevertheless, we took a couple of videos and some photos.  Then continued walking home.

This is a terrible video.  The bright blue lights strung up above the street blurs everything, and the sound is even worse.  Believe it or not, they sounded pretty good and they weren't at all drunk, like they sound. :0

So what had turned out to be such a dark day ended with bright lights, music, and happy, happy faces.

Black Day in History

January 20, 2016

Watching the inauguration in spite of myself, like being drawn to watch a train wreck. I'm so sad to see the Obamas leave.  I remember watching his inauguration 8 years with Gaby who was only 3 years old.  She had practiced saying "Barack Obama" and recognizing him whenever she saw him on TV or pictures.  Now, at eleven, she has no memory of any other president.  I'm so glad that she has him as a model to measure all other presidents against throughout her life.

The first inauguration I remember is Kennedy's.  It was so cold in DC that day, everyone so bundled up.  But his words were so powerful and made such an impression on my 12-year-old mind. We can never know what lies ahead, and I suppose it's a good thing that no one could have had a premonition for what lay ahead.  I'm so fearful now of what's to come.  I see the images of the capitol, Washington Monument, the view down the mall.  They're so filled with symbolism and meaning, and so many people feel that deeply.  I can never see those monuments without being stirred, conscious of the words and promises of the documents they represent. I could never teach the rhetoric of those documents to students without chills, realizing how long they've held true and how many people have often held true and fast.

Sen. Schumer is reading a powerful letter from Civil War soldier Major Sullivan Ballou.

And now Clarence Thomas is swearing in Mike Pence as vice-president.  How appropriate..

Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings "America."  Beautiful song, but he's so unworthy of anything so majestic.

Chief Justice Roberts is now swearing him in. God help us all.  And now Hail to the Chief.  Chief Enemy of the country.

Now his speech:  "transferring power from Wash. DC and giving it back to you the people." He's calling all politicians self-serving who have fleeced the American people.  As if his own pockets will not be lined with more money. He's made no sacrifices for public good, and refuses to do so now.  "the people became the rulers of this nation again...the forgotten people of our country will be forgotten no longer." Reference "the movement" that put him in office.  Back to the poverty of the ?inner cities...school systems flush with cash...the gangs...American carnage"

Grand promises with no hints of how to pay for them. "When you open your hearts to patriotism there is no room for prejudice." "Most importantly we will be protected by God." This man is so far from Godly. Lightning should strike him down.

Benedictions: Rabbi from Simon Wiesenthal Center reads a psalm.

Now Franklin Graham, strident evangelical. "Wants all people to be saved...only one way through Jesus."

Bishop Jackson, African-American pastor--reminds me of Douglass' "What to Me is the Fourth of July?"

Commentators all saying the same thing--this was a campaign speech, not an inaugural speech, also predicted by Bob.

It's over.