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Nine Month Trip
Introduction California Mexico (Dec-Jan) Mexico (Feb) Boston (one week) ParisMexico - Guanajuato
| Restaurants that we like: |
|
Los Campos-a wonderful tapas place run by Michael, a Canadian, and his
Mexican wife, very nice wines also. Escarola - organic food and frescos- outdoor seating over a garden in the making Taula - been twice- has rustic elegance good food and good wine Clave Azul - you order a round of drinks and tapas not of your own choosing show up Casa Ofellia - Christmas dinner- 2 specials Pozoles and Carne Asada- good house wine El Midi - A French Bistro with Mexican Tones and a lot of live music |
December 1
Departure and Arrival
The evening before we left we drank a bottle of Champagne and went to a sushi dinner, the six of us. Amber and Patrick are pros and were ordering stuff for the children while we were still sitting down. Later, when we got a chance to look at the menu, we ordered more food along with some sake for Dawn and myself. A sweet occasion. We walked back to the house in the rain with umbrellas flying and children's boots stomping. We all said goodnight and goodbye with long and deep hugs because early this morning after quick kisses as they awoke, we Ubered ourselves to the airport with Joe our driver and flew first to Los Angelos and then to Leon, Mexico. At the gate in Los Angeles during our layover, we meditate for twenty minutes even though just as we started, I heard the woman at the desk make an announcement that they needed some volunteers to sit in the exit row. So we sat and afterwards I hurried up the the desk to find that there are two seats left. So we flew with lots of leg room, something that we are not acustomed to. Going from group three to group one turned to be as big a perk as the flight was full and we avoided the fierce overhead space battle.
Costa Rica and now Mexico are the only places where people take
other peoples bags off the baggage carousel, then I assume that other people
line them up in some attempt to find their own bags. My white
gaff name tags and Dawn's ribbons are now hidden and it takes a while
to find the bags even though Dawn's is a rare color of purple.
But when we wheel out of the Customs area, Ramiro in his black hat and white shirt awaited us. He grabbed one of Dawn's roller bags and led us out to his car and we headed toward Guanajuato, about thirty-five minutes away. Just south of town, we make a stop at the Mega for olive oil, beer, wine and milk, the heavy things we might not want to carry up the hill. The Mega might be the biggest store I have ever been in. It has a bag check desk and it seems we walked a long way even before we got to the food. But we find enough food and get my bag back which had all my camera and computer gear and headed into Guanajuato itself. We drove through a tunnel and when we came out it was like drivig onto a Orson Welles set for one of his noir Mexican films. We go in and out of numerous small plazas and down many one way streets before we worked our way up the hill.
Stephen
Suddenly we turn and come to a stop. A few feet in front of us is small chapel, door like a garage-door wide open. Inside and spilling out onto the tiny plaza are folks attending a wake. We see the candles, religious icons, and the coffin in front of the simple altar. Ramiro removed his hat immediately out of respect. He could not park anywhere, so we hurriedly got the bags and groceries out of the back of the car, with the help of a neighborhood boy and carried/rolled everything down the callejon (a narrow street impassable by cars) to Casa Palma. I was very self-conscious, feeling like it was disrespectful for us to be doing this during a memorial service, but Ramiro said such open-to-the-street services happen often in Mexico, not to worry about it. Later we heard from Rachel that it was a girl who had died, and since she was poor, the neighbors all chipped in to get a coffin and have a service for her. Sad, but so sweet that a group of not so well-off neighbors cooperated to give dignity to her transition from this life into whatever she/they believe comes next.
It must have been 9:00 p.m. by the time we finally set foot in Casa
Palma. We left Amber's in San Francisco at 7:15 a.m. However, we did
fly east so it really only felt like 7:00 p.m. to us. (We are now two
hours later than Pacific coast time so only one hour earlier than
eastern time.)
We were warmly greeted by Rachel and Adam, our landlords here. They felt like friends already since we had exchanged a number of emails and phone calls about food safety, getting here from the airport, their grey-water irrigation system, etc. It was a lovely welcome, and Rachel had prepared a nice bean and veggie dish with a few shrimp thrown in, a pickled cabbage salad, tortillas, some cheese and cream to put on top, and some cold cerveza.
People often compare Guanajuato (GTO) to a Tuscan hill town. In the
Centro historico, one can certainly feel all that Europen influence. It
is beautiful. However, we live in a truly Mexican neighborhood, and you
would never mistake it for Tuscany, although the little streets and
shops uphill from us reminded us of Raffadali, Sicily. GTO is a
pretty wealthy town for Mexico, but this is still a poor country, and
one can feel and see that. Still, I must emphatically add that
everyone we meet here is very friendly and welcoming. Strangers greet
us in the street.
Our son-in-law Patrick often calls us hippies, but he has to meet
Rachel and Adam! Although at least twenty years younger than we
are, they lead more of a hippy lifestyle than we do, with no permanent
home address in the states and a lovely 1969 VW bus parked next to our
casa. These people really want to change the world, and they do
it by starting close to home. For instance, they have
commissioned a Mexican neighbor, Pepé, to paint a mural on the wall
outside the house that we are now living in. It deals with a kind of
history from pre-Biblical times to Adam and Eve, to the advent of
agriculture, to social customs and the landmarks and everyday life in
Guanajuato. Rachel gives Pepé the ideas, but it is Pepé who realizes
them in his own way. In fact, in the Garden of Eden scene, it is Adam
who picks the apple. Rachel likes this "mistake" because her husband,
Adam, is very tall, and she thinks it's a humorous comment on
them. I think the mural is stunning. It is folk art at its best
in my opinion, and it's the first time Pepé has ever been paid to
paint. He is thrilled. In fact, I think he is having a hard time
finishing the painting because he doesn't want to stop doing it. He
keeps adding more and more details. He has four children and lives in
the house next door with various other family members. Rachel wants to
start a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for him to do more murals
throughout Guanajuato.
Dawn
Another example of how they act on their world view is a website that Adam is developing where people can offer services to each other, swapping one person's talent and skill for another. Called WikiWonga, he is beta-testing it now. For instance, one person might offer some plumbing services in exchange for some expertise and help with developing a garden.
Stephen
(top)
December 6
First Six Days
Casa Palma is at once beautiful and idiosyncratic. They did a lot of the work in it themselves. The tiles throughout the casa are delightful and especially dense in the bathroom. Adam created plant-like lamps out of metal and built-in sofas out of wood. I believe he also made the three-burner gas range on a metal rack from which the pots and pans hang.
While there is a small electric device like a toaster oven, without the toaster function, the only other oven is a UiTzi, a solar oven that they have designed and have a business selling them. As you can see from the photo, it is a big box-like affair mounted on the corner of the terrace railing with mirrors and corn husk insulation. It is set up so that you can swivel it to follow the sun as the day progresses. We've had some pretty good success with baking sliced potatoes and making sun-dried tomatoes in there. Of course when it's cloudy, it doesn't work.
They also have solar-heated water (with a gas backup) and a somewhat elaborate gray-water system, with some drains going directly into the garden/orchard and others into a tank for filtration. A month or so before we got here, Rachel did some research to find out why her fig trees were looking unhappy. It seems that the elevation, dryness, and sun here make for a very basic soil. Apparently the sodium in detergents and soaps, especially sodium laurel sulfate-type ingredients that were coming through the gray-water are not good for a garden that is in low-acid soil. So we went hunting around San Francisco and came up with the old reliable Dr. Bronner's which we are using for dishes, showering, and mostly for laundry, with a drop of something more potent. It seems that no shampoos are entirely without sodium products, but I found an Aubrey Organics one that seems petty good. For you detail-oriented folks, the only thing that does not go into the gray-water system is the toilet which goes into city sewage.
One of the best parts of living here is that
Adam and Rachel live only a few hundred yards away. They have been so generous in showing us
where to get good veggies and other foods, introducing us to lots of
folks in town, both Mexican and Gringo, and generally taking care of
us. For instance, there's a man who sits at the entrance to the Mercado
Hidalgo and sells the most wonderful yogurt made from cows on a nearby
farm. The yogurt comes in a terra cotta jug, with a paper cover over it
it. It's only 25 pesos (under two bucks) for the whole thing, even if
you don't return the jug. (Right, Rachel in the garden.)
Dawn
In Spanish, you don't take a walk, you give a walk. We have been giving ourselves many walks during this first week. We have gone to the covered market in the town center and up to the neighborhod butchers and fruit and vegetable stores near us. We went to both language schools in town and interviewed them and decided on Escuela Mexicana. The director gave us a little discount to put his school's prices in line with other. On Thursday we went there and were interviewed in Spanish and then give written tests in order to place us in classes.
We saw a sign for a dance concert
by students at the Universadad
Guanajuato at the Teatro Principal, seven dollars for both of us.
At the beginning there was an announcement that turned out to be a
program
order change which left us in a state of confusion most of the
evening. There was lots of good stuff with some not so good
work, but we had a good time. You haven't lived until you
have watched one dancer pitch eggs to another who was trying to hit
them with a bat into the audience. We were lucky on two counts,
the first is
that she didn't pitch very well and the second is that they were hard
boiled. There was some tango type dancing that wasn't very good, but
the evening was lead off by a very nice twelve minute solo. She
broke almost all my
rules, (like choice of music, squareness of the structure, over use of
gesture, etc.) but got away with it because of her beautiful
dancing and significant performance
skills. She could really dance, and made beautiful seamless
transitions to pedestrian movement and back. She connected
everything and always stayed inside her body. (Adam, above, is watering
the orchard)
Stephen
(top)
December 12
First Week in Spanish Classes
OMG, I acted my way so well through the oral interview, that they put me in intermediate-level classes. On one day I was confronted with the imperfect and preterite verb tenses, the latter of which has six groups of irregularly conjugated verbs. I am still trying to keep all those verb endings straight, even after my "graduation."
We became friends with Lily and Tim, both English and in their forties. Lily was in all my classes while Tim was in Stephen's. They were great fun to have around and are just leaving town today. We will surely miss them. They had their motorcycles shipped from London to New York City and spent five months driving and camping throughout the USA, and then on to Mexico. They were held up for a month in Tennessee because Tim broke his ankle and had to rest it before being able to get on the moto again. Lily is taking a year off from her job as a detective with the London police (we call her our own Helen Mirren), and Tim, a multi-talented guy and former plumber, quit his job at the silk factory in order to take this trip. They plan to continue south, through Central and South America.
Dawn
top)
December 12
Beethoven's Ninth
We saw a sign for a concert with a Bach piece and Beethoven's Ninth and later with Rachel met Michael wno plays cello in the orchestra. So we made arrangements to get some tickets. Lily, Tim and Gilah from school and Rachel and Adam. We tried to get tickets but couldn't find the box office, so Adam and Rachel got them. They paid fifty pesos and we paid one hundred each (US$7). We tried to get to a pre concert talk in Spanish but it turned out that it was canceled. Anyway, the line was very long and slow so it took 30 minutes to get in. We did get a chance to talk a couple in line behind us, They wanted to speak English and we wanted to speak Spanish, which is what happened. Fortunately when we got into the theater, Tim was waiting for us and led up to very good seats in the orchestra. Rachel and Adam went to get a bite first and later found seats down left in the orchestra. The orchester belongs to the University but is a profession orchestra.
Dawn thought the Bach was too slow, but I was pleased with sound that they got, especially the first violins.
The Beethoven was again astounding. It hardly seemed to be the same art form as Bach. It seemed like a theater of sound, very personal, very emotional. At the end, they played the last section again as an encore. The orchestra seemed to be ready for this but the chorus was not, and there was some frantic turning of pages as they found out where they were going to start. But even this was not the end, as, after more bows, the horn section began to play something to honor the first oboist who was retiring after this performance. The music swelled as other members joined in. Flowers appeared and he slowly worked his way downstage receiving hugs and handshakes from his colleagues until he took his last bow to the audience who responded warmly and appreciatively.
Stephen
(top)
December 14
FaceTime with Tess, Chloe and Sydney
We had a long chat with the girls and Tess showed me how to take a screen shot. Of couse, you get Dawn drinking her coffee and me holding down the power and home buttons simultaneously and trying to keep my arms from blocking the camera.
We gave them a tour of the place and discussed our family Christmas present and generally had a good time finding out what they had been doing that fall.
Stephen
(top)
December 14
Inside an Incan Sweat Lodge
Soon after we got here we met Rosario and were informed that she did massages and did something on Sunday that included mud, chanting and salt. I didn't pay much attention. On Saturday I found out that I was kind of signed up and I should contact Rosario only if I did not want to go. Under our rubric that life is meant to be an adventure, I silently progressed to what turned out to be a Incan Sweat Lodge Ceremony.
Stephen
Rosario is a woman, in spite of the "o" at the end of her name. We entered Rosario's property through a gate, then wound our way up through a lush garden that reminded me of Costa Rica. We were greeted by herself and Ana, a young Argentinian woman, both scantily clad and lying on a blanket in the sun. After we established that no one else was going to attend the ritual that day, we stripped down to underwear, and Rosario wafted incense all over each us while chanting. We then entered the igloo-shaped sauna, covered with green branches on the floor, low stools around the edges, hand-percussion instruments hanging on pegs on the walls. There was a pit in the center. Rosario then shoveled, about eight times, VERY hot rocks into the pit while we chanted something about being thankful for life, the water, and the salt that Ana sprinkled over the rocks. Then came the big whammy: Rosario poured water over the rocks, and the first blast of steam just about wiped me out. It was incredibly hot, and she had closed the door so it was very dark before my eyes adjusted. I have been claustrophobic in the past (although mostly overcame that with another strange ritual in New Mexico in 2001.) Still, I felt like I couldn't breathe and craved water but didn't want to interrupt the ritual. After the water-throwing, Rosario played a kunga drum and chanted, Ana joining in. All was in Spanish, of course, so we comprehended about 25% of it. Eventually we started some vocal harmonizing with them, even if we didn't know the words. Rosario was topless by then, and she and Ana danced with the drumming. I was afraid that if I got up to dance, I would keel over!
The rock-and-water bit was repeated three or four times. At some point, Rosario suggested I lie down on the branches which, of course, made me cooler, and I know that one can't faint if the head is at the same level as the body, so I relaxed. She also gave us some mint tea to drink which was very welcome. We got the important gist of the ritual: There are two doors in life, one is birth and one is death. Both are equally important and part of the whole path of existence. Death is very present in Mexican culture in general. We rubbed mud and salt on our bodies, presumably as a kind of purification of toxins. Ana took several turns drumming and speaking, and Rosario asked us if we wanted to add anything. I was able to get out, in my rudimentary Spanish, something I have often shared with my students, a Buddhist concept that if one does not think about death every day, one is not truly living. This is not a maudlin concept but a reminder to be grateful for the gift of human life. Stephen also said something about being present, using the two Spanish verbs of ser and estar in a thoughtful way. Rosario appreciated our participation.
After a couple of hours in there, she left the sauna/steambath and took a cold shower outside, then lay down in the sun. Ana followed suit, Stephen and I next. We drank water and ate fruit slices. After much hugging (and our leaving 500 pesos on the table), Rosario invited us to a mescal/dance improvisation party on Christmas. It sounds like an interesting way to spend Christmas in Mexico where it has been in the low 70's with sun and blue sky most days!
Dawn
The incense wafting part of the ritual was an exact copy of the hand scanning that one gets at the airport. What I said was, "Yo esto aquí, sino yo soy aquí". The first part mean I am here, the second part means here is me, or I am the here. It is not grammatical Spanish, but rather poetic speech. At least, that is what I told Juancarlos the next day when I had to talk about what I did the day before. Since then, we have been told by Rachel that we may have misinterpreted this invitation. Rachel is investigating. We may end up in the sweat lodge again.
Also, rubric is something printed in red that usually was a rule. I couldn't resist printing it in red.
Stephen
(top)
December 16
Dinner Party
This party was on Tuesday instead of the previous Saturday in a attempt by Rachel to have enough sun for the solar oven to make pozole. The Saturday was cloudy but so was Tuesday so we had food beautifully grilled by Adam and more food expertly made by Rahel and I brought some marinated "Camarones gigantes con cabezas" big shrimp with heads. We ate like kings. Rachel believes that the shrimp with heads are more local because the Chinese won't ship the heads that far. I marinated the shrimp at home and cooked them there so they would be hot and ready. We had been introduced to Julian at the Beethoven Concert, but hadn't really gotten a chance to talk to him.
The general discussions were in English but small conversations might be in Spanish. I did get to tell Julian when were going to be in the Yucatan, using the prepositions and date formes I had learn that day, but otherwise I spoke English.
Above is a picture of a sobremesa (On table) which refers to those conversations over coffe, tequila or whatever at the end of a meal.
Stephen
(top)
December 18
Posada
We celebrated a Posada today at the Escuela and also combined with our graduation ceremony and speeches. Posada means inn and what is celebrated is Joseph's and Mary's search for an inn to stay in in Bethlehem. It is celebrated for the nine days before Christmas. Two people play Mary and Joseph and after Joseph knocks on the outside door there is antiphonal singing between the people on the outside and the innkeeper and friends on the inside. In the end, we are let in and sing the last two verses together. An aside is that Dawn and I played the parts of Mary and Joseph. Emily was going to pay the part of our accompanying angel but her costume never appeared. I think that in a more authentic version, the group goes on to pray in front the nativity scene but we skipped to the graduation ceremony. This week the ceremeny was switched from Friday to be combined with the Posada. Their were adults finishing their classes in Spanish and kids and teenagers finishing English classes. There were Christmas carols in English by the Mexican kids and thank you speeches by the Americans speaking Spanish, with the exception of Lily who spoke Japanese and I am not exactly sure what Tim spoke,
S: En los estados unidos , cuando se recibe un diploma, la ceremonia se hama COMMENCEMENT.
D: Entonces nosotros comenzamos un nuevo capitulo de la vida .
S: Vamos viajar en Mexico sin la ayuda de nuestras maestras y JuanCarlos.
D: PARA nosotros
S: POR ?
D: Será muy difícil a hablar POR mucho tiempo
S: PARA ?
D; Con la gente de Guanajuato cuando andamos PARA las calles
S: POR (correcting)
D: POR cinco semanas mas aquí.
PARA /POR?? (together loudly)
S: Queremos decir muchas gracias a todos
D: Por su paciencia, amabilidad y conocimiento
We were having some fun with use of Para and Por which both translate as "for" but are used at different times. There are nine rules for each word at Dawn's level. At mine, we learned three. For me, (Para mi), the difficulty in making the speech was in the correct pronunciation of all the vowels.
The event ended with the eating of tamales and a traditional punch, both of which we made on Wednesday in the school kitchen. The tamales were OK, but the punch was good, before and after the addition of a little tequila that I purchased for the occasion and shared with some of the adults at our end of the table.
The grand finale was the Piñata. I have 15 minutes of video of all the kids, teenagers and then adults swinging at the piñata. Juan Carlos and Edith were up on the balcony controlling its height and swing so it was hard to hit, especially after each person had been rotated around a couple of times before having at it.
Stephen
(top)
December 19
You have begun to and will hear more about Lily and Tim, but right now I am going to present a gallery of his photograhy with appropriate notes.
(top)
December 20
A drink and a show
We went down to the Plaza San Fernando to see if the Danzon was
happening. Danzón is a foxtrot like dance that came from Cuba, mostly
dome by people of our age. We were told that it would be tomorrow at
some other place. So we sat down at the Cerro de Ranas and had a couple
of teqilas, guacamole
and a beer. The above picture has three of the five musicians who
came and performed in front of our table. The guitar and sax
players and are out of the picture. Both of the women sang
beautifully. They sang ballads and the band accompanied them with
a improvisorial/ klezmer sound. There were only three tables of
audience and the other tables sang along, vocalized backup in a high
Mexican style and requested songs.
One's reaction to having musicians come to your table to play and then requesting money either for playing or going away is highly personal. We like it, or have so far. Afterwards, the lead singer went over and spoke a few words with a woman sitting at a table in the back. The woman turned out to be the owner and our best guess was that she was getting a cut from their takings. But of coursee, we have to make a lot of stuff up.
Stephen
(top)
December 21
Another Posada
If I had found something about dancing on Sunday in Guanajuato, we would have been down in town dancing, instead we were up in our house watching online a kind of goofy movie called "Yes, Georgio" made in 1982 with Luciano Pavoratti playing Georgio. We were feeling kind of disappointed. In the middle of one of Pavoratti's arias, I began to hear a faintly familar tune that was not really a tune but a cadence. I said to Dawn, "I hear the Posada song".
I went to the dining room and opened the door to the terrace. It wasn't any louder. I circled back to the front door and opened it. Closer. We got our shoes on and opened the door to the little alley where we live. There was no one there about to knock on our door, but up the street in front of the house of Pepe, our next door neighbor, were about forty people with candles and sparklers and two children carrying a nativity scene slowly on the street.
We went up to see more of what was happening. The Mexicans, at least in our neighborhood, don't let you lurk, so immediately we were handed two small candles and a couple of sparklers. The song was the same, recognizable by the words and the tune that is not a tune. We didn't have our lyric sheet from the school, so our ability to sing along was minimal. The pattern was the same, sing at the door, then the people behind the door would sing back. But here, the children would march down the alley, swing around and go to the top of the alley, and then return to the door. At some point, they would change bearers, though I never saw it happen. Each time, as they went past me, a different child would look up at me and give me a smile.
I knew what was coming. Once the door was opened, this group of paraders would go in to the house and there would be prayers, maybe long prayers and I was ready to call it an evening.
Stephen
A little clarification: Instead of people dressing up as Maria and José, the children were carrying a kind of stretcher with small statues of them. Each time they circled around to the door (could it have been nine times?), the singing seemed to get louder and more demanding. The words are something like, "Don't be inhumane; let us in; my wife is about to give birth." Meanwhile, part of the celebration is throwing very loud firecrackers down the street. Finally the people inside open the door and everyone in the street is ushered in. We hesitated, not wanting to intrude on their ritual, but they motioned us in, and I felt that it would be rude not to enter. A couple of steep steps down a narrow passageway, and we could see a small, covered garden area with a creche in the center where the Mary & Joseph statues were placed. A young woman, presumably Pepé's wife, said a series of prayers or parts of the story, each followed by an antiphonal group response. The little space was packed with people. A couple of very young children on the steps in front of us kept re-lighting their candle-stubs and putting them on cardboard holders, with strands of hair getting threateningly close to the flames, bringing out the worried grandma in me.
While this was happening, a couple of teenagers passed out styrofoam cups of puncha to the crowd, the same wonderful hot fruit punch we had made at school. Stephen and I kept trying to pass the cups up to the people behind us, but they kept insisting that we keep and drink one. After the talking/chanting was over, a 20-something man squeezed by us twice to retrieve two piñatas from a room behind us. He climbed a ladder up to the roof and attached the piñatas to a rope on the roof. Then the passagway door was opened again. As we exited, a young woman was passing out bolsas (bags) of candy to everyone on their way out. I at first refused, saying "Por los niños" but when everyone came out they still had some bags left and insisted that I take one. This morning we gave them away to the young woman who comes to clean our house on Mondays. A greater treat than candy for me is the fact that someone actually does clean our house, unlike when we are home in Boston.
We got some video of the ensuing piñata party. They seem to start with the smallest children whacking at the thing, some even in their parents' arms. Gradually the kids get older, stronger, and more aggressive with the stick. Of course the guys on the roof pull the piñata just out of range sometimes as the older kids whack away at it. The song gets louder, and the crowd gets more excited by the minute. Finally the thing splits, and candy comes pouring out to a surge of children clambering to pick up the (wrapped) sweets from the street.
Returning to our house and resuming the somewhat tacky movie we had started, I thought about what a contrast of singing we experienced last evening, from the amazing range and breath control of Pavarotti's Italian arias to the utterly chaotic, non-harmonic voices of our neighbors singing the traditional Posada song. I was so touched that they included us in their celebration. Although not a rich neighborhood economically, it is a neighborhood rich in generosity and warmth. To me (para mi!), this is what the "Christmas spirit" is all about.
Dawn
(top)
December 22
Hike to a Presa
(top)
December 24-26
Two Meals Out
Christmas eve, we went down to find a Mass. We were not sucessful. There seemed to be no signs about when the masses would be so we took a picture of the Casa Ofelia menu and thought we would come back. Juan Carlos touted it as a pretty good restaurant for real Mexican food. We went home and collected our chicken dinner which was cooling its heels in the solar oven. We put it on the slow burner and waited for it to finish.
The next day, Christmas, was busy as we facetimed the children, and then climbed up to El Pipila, the large statue on the other hill. We found our way down and discovered we were hungry so we had a Christmas day dinner Casa Ofelia. It was very nice, Dawn had the Posole verde which is a traditional dish for the holiday and I had a meat thing and a nice tempranillo from Spain. We were the only Gringos there. When we got back, there was an invitation from Adam and Rachel to stop over for drinks and Christmas cheer. We looked up some lyrics of Deck the Halls and seranaded them as they came to the door. We exchanged little things as presents.
The
day after Christmas, St. Stephen's day, we were headed to Clave Azul,
the Blue Nail, when we decided to stop into Alma de Sol to see if Hugo
was there. This is the place where Susan and Andy will stay when
they come day for the middle of January. It is a beautiful
B&B in the middle of Guanajuato. We know this because he was
there, in his small printmaking shop next to the B&B and after we
introduced ourselves as Susan's friends, he gave us a grand tour of his
shop and the B&B. Since he was waiting to have Margheritas on
his roof deck with the two couples who were staying there, he insisted
that we join them. In fact, we got a head start on them. They
arrived and the conversation roamed widely over a large range of
topics. The couple from California left to follow the
Callejóneades, which is the minstral show which leads their audience
through the streets of Guanajuato. We left sometime after that
and guided the other couple to a restaurant that Hugo
recommended. It was full.....
Stephen
So we took them over to La Taula again, the place near our school where we had a nice lunch a couple of weeks ago. We all shared four interesting tapas plates: shrimp, little BBQ ribs, Swiss chard filled with goat cheese and a kind of smoked trout salad. All very good; plus a total of five glasses of the house red. the grand total for the four of us was barely $40 (American). The exchange rate is pretty amazing right now. Hence we left a more generous tip than is usual for Mexico; our camerero was so patient with our limited language skills and long stay at the table. The other couple seemed to think that we are so adventuresome to live up the hill in a Mexican barrio and walk everywhere, carrying groceries, etc. We think that they are way more adventuresome than we as they have been to Tibet, China, Cambodia, Japan, Ecuador, Iran, Afghanistan and had some amazing experiences in those places. They are our generation, and he seems to be retired from something we didn't really get a clear idea of, but his work took him to China "more than one hundred times." Hmm, state department? CIA? She has not yet retired from teaching English as a second language at the university in Madison, Wisconsin.
We walked them back to their B&B. Hugo invited us to have breakfast there today, but we declined as we know we will join Susan and Andy for many a breakfast when they are staying there. All in all, it was one of those completely unexpected and congenial evenings.
Dawn
(top)
December 29
Clave Azul
The day started of with buying a bottle of Don Simon Seleccione for 45 pesos. We think this is the wine we had a Casa Ofelia which we liked. The internet says it was made for Whole Foods. People seem to like it but we shall see. It has no vintage on it so it must be some kind of blend.
We are looking for a place to have a meal on New Year's Eve. La Vie en Rose, our pain au chocolat, place is having one but we have not gotten to see the restaurant. This day they were closed.
So
we walked over to San Fernando and hung out on a bench and watched
people. Forever entertaining. Then we walked up to Clave Azul for a
drink. On the internet this place is sometimes called a restuarant and
sometimes a bar. We walked in a found a table and waited.
The bartender was busy and the cook was deliverying food to the
tables. This pause gave us time to look over the decorations that
filled the place. Old radios, religious shrines, mementos of dream
lives filled the walls. The waiter came over and we negotiated a
round of margaritas and asked if we wanted the tapas. In this
bar, you get a tapas for every drink. I don't think you get to
choose. A soup came first, then with a round of cervezas, some
garlically paprica potatoes. There was a family at the table from
which the picture was taken. A little baby got all the
attention. Guitar players wandered in and out, One played a very
romantic song for Dawn. We changed seats at our small table
so that we had different views. The wall were filled with crazy
decorations. When you arrive, go up the right hand staircase to get to
one of three levels, (the terrace was closed when we were there.
A good place. Probably will be different when you are there, but
very definitely a place to try. Let's all keep the adventure in travel.
Stephen
(top)
December 30
La Vie en Rose and Walk Home
We have been picking up their very good french pastries on the way to school and sometimes some sinful thing on the way home to share for dessert. Today we went there for lunch. A very simple place. You order downstairs before you go up the the dining room upstairs. We ate inside and did not eat at this very theatrical table that overlooked the street from a tiny balcony. The place upstairs was very elegant, the wine from Chile very good and we had a long chat with both the patron and patroness. They came to Mexico because their daughter fell in love with a Mexican man. So now they have a French restaurant in a very Mexican town. Good Luck. In order to make her pastries she has to import her butter, sugar, almond paste and chocolate from France. (In Mexico, the butter has water in it, the sugar isn't white enough and the chocolate is too bitter, she says.) We will come back for dinner.
Stephen
The entire conversation with Nathalie was in French, and as the hour progressed, she spoke faster and faster. Finally Stephen asked her to slow down...which she did for about one sentence! Actually it was a relief for me because I got so much more of what she was saying than when I am listening to rapid-fire Spanish speakers.
They are originally from Normandy. When she heard that we will be in Paris for the spring and have not yet visited Normandy, she gave me her email address and said she would be happy to give me names of places we must see, eat, or sleep in. We three reminisced about sitting by the harbor in Cancale, Brittany, eating fresh-from-the-sea oysters with a nice bottle of Muscadet. A smile came to her face and her eyes rolled up saying, Ah, cela, c'est la vie.
Dawn
Walk Home
We walk from the holiday crowded streets of Guanajuato up into our
neighborhood. The paving gets rougher, the lighting gets darker but the
atmosphere gets friendlier. We speak to everyone we pass. When we get
to our casa I can't say that it is quiet, but it does give us a respite
from the centro. Perhaps like scuba diving or snorkeling.
It is great down there but it feels good to come up for air.
We watched 'Under The Volcano" last night on YouTube. It is about Mexico in the thirties. We haven't gone into a cantina yet.
Stephen
(top)
January 1
Feliz Año Nuevo
Last night was "First Night in Guanajuato." We saw a flyer that said the city council and mayor were inviting us to a big New Year's Eve celebration, for free. The flyer said it started at 5:30. Now knowing about Mexican time, we wandered down to the Plaza de la Paz at about 6:15 to find a very high stage set up with lots of trusses, state-of-the-art moving LED lights, and tons of speakers, all in front of the Basilica. Temporary seating was set up and only a few folks occupied the first two rows. So we found good seats in the second row...and waited...and waited. Three different sets of people sat in the seats next to us and left. At 7:00, the show began. Lights popped on to the brightest level of white light I have ever seen on a stage. The emcees were a man and a woman who epitomized the fast-talking, smoothe, hyping each other style of emcees from variety shows the world over. It didn't matter that we only understood about 10% of what they were saying. Their clothes, body language and demeanor said it all.
After several technical difficulties with the sound system, a group of
young ladies sporting Santa hats and short skirt Santa suits came out
and danced to a Mexican version of Jingle Bells. Meanwhile a tourist
bus drove by with huge blow-ups of the Grinch and Frosty tottering
around on the roof in the wind. Mind you, it is about 70 degrees with a
bright sun just having set...no sign of frost to be found (much to my
delight.) There was more dancing by an expanded group of folks costumed
in everything from a nun's habit to a bridal dress to hip-hop duds,
dancing to a medley of carols in English starting with Deck the Halls.
Then came the troubadour group from the local university that performs
nightly in GTO, getting people to walk through the streets with them
and sing along. It was real community theater, ocasionally low on
talent but always high in enthusiasm. By 8:00 p.m., I couldn't sit in
my seat any more so we left and walked through the portico area of the
Basilica to find our way out of the crowd. Inside the open church door,
we could see that the Basilica was packed with people celebrating a New
Year's Eve mass, even amidst the incredibly loud sound system from the
very secular show just outside the door.
We walked up our hill and reheated the lovely chicken dinner with garden herbs that we had made in the solar oven that afternoon. We got a couple of internet radio stations that played oldies, rolled up the rug and danced. At some point, I started to doze on the couch and was awakened by loud fireworks. We had the most amazing view of a fireworks display that I have ever seen in my life, right from our dining room and deck at the Casa Palma. 'Twas a clear night with a half moon and stars, and the display was really beautiful. After that, Stephen found a well-shot and edited video of a 40-year reunion concert by James Taylor and Carole King at the Troubador. Oh wow, we were high on nostalgia last night...I feel the earth move under my feet and you've got a friend and all...Went to bed at 1:30 a.m. to the continuing sound of neighbors' parties and "private" fireworks.
Dawn
(top)
January 7
First Week of the Year
We started off with a power failure in the morning. It was interesting to find out what we had and didn't have. Solar oven, yes; gas burners, yes; computer, ipad, phones, until the batteries ran out; wifi; no; landline telephone, yes - but the only people we call have a cordless powered phone - so not really. In the middle of meditation the power came back on and our first, but not last, excitement of the year was over. The rest if the day we took it easy, things around the house etc.
The Alhondiga is a granary where the Mexican War of Independence against Spain started. It is now a museum and a very beautiful one, It has a large outdoor sculpture garden surrounded by two floors of galleries. It starts with Pre-Columbian stamps and works its way to the present and leaves a few galleries for current artists. They let us in for free because we are over sixty which is always nice. We crossed Cerro de las Ranas off our list of restuarants after a return visit after the museum where Dawn got canned mushrooms in her quesadilla. We went there mostly because it had the only table in the plaza that was in the sun. Of course, the earth moved and we were in the shade in ten minutes. It is getting a little colder here, but we are not going to say any more about that.
I am beginning to work on a new video for Dawn walking up stairs. This one is the nine minute trip from the Plaza de la Paz to our front door. I have shot a timing video and now have shot Dawn making the trip from the bottom to the top. We are on hold now (see below),
Stephen
(top)
January 10
A Bump in the Road
Dawn is much better. While on a shopping trip on Thursday in the leather district of Leon (the airport city for Guanajuato) a sore knee and hamstring cramp turned into joint pain and then into chills and fever and full body pain. Thursday night was difficult which lead to a visit to the Centro Medico la Presa the next day, once she could walk a little. She was examined and had a blood test. Dr. Ricardo Garcia was thoughtful, kind and thorough. Dawn rested in bed in a private room for an hour while we waited for the results of the tests. They came back with nothing too serious and a course of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories was prescribed along with a lot of fluid. She has been resting since then and we have been taking cabs, and learning how to call them. I need to say that Rachel, from whom we rent our house, came with us to the doctor to make it possible to talk to and understand him and that her concern and bringing teas and pedialyte to help re-hydrate Dawn turned this event into just a bump in the road.
More.
Dawn is back to her delightful healthy self and we are both thankful every day.
Stephen
Stephen liked this blanket they put on me at the clinic, but sorry I look kind of awful. Am definitely better now!
Dawn
(top)
January 11
Susan and Andy Arrive
They arrived last night and we joined them for breakfast at Hugo's B&B, Alma de Sol. They looked great. surviving with ease their trip from New England. Sunday at Hugo's suggestion we took a cab to Marfil and went to a jazz concert at the Gene Byron Museum. Gene is short for Eugenia, whose paintings fill her former home. We will send more info after some internet research. We had dinner at El Midi, a French Bistro with Mexican undertones. As the week progressed, Dawn returned to normal, walking the hills and doing some yoga. She is still taking ibuprofen and will be for a couple of more days. The video piece is on hold. We have been going out to dinner with Susan and Any and shopping, (I bought a Panama hat for myself). Hugo has invited us to breakfast any time we want and we have taken him up on his offer a couple of times. The fruit and fresh squeezed orange juice are great and what follows (gorditas, huevos rancheros, fritatas) are truly excellant.
On Friday we went to hear the symphony again. This time they played a short Mozart, The Rodrigo Guitar and Symphony Piece and Beethoven's Sixth. We dressed up for the occasion, (I wore my new hat) and had a great time. (Photo above)
Stephen
(top)
January 13
CERECALY
Ceracaly is an acronym for CEntro REgional de Capacitacion del Agua Las Yerbas.
We met up with Julian and a van filled with four young women, two dogs and us. The high road to Ceracaly was beautiful. It felt wonderful to get out of the city and see the hills from the other side. We went through a national forest and then into Dolores Hidalgo where we picked up two young men. Picture this seating arrangement: Two young women sharing the front seat with a large dog mostly on the floor but wanting to be in a lap, four of us in the middle seat, two others in the back with another dog. No one but the driver was really able to wear a seat belt, but happily we all survived the twisty, precipitous drive with Julian occasionally on his cell phone trying to raise money for the foundation.
As the trip progressed, the land
became more and more arid, supporting only cactus and an occasional mesquite tree. When we got to the
center, which has been there for twenty years now, we were greeted by
the administrative head and Manuel, the all-around handy-man. In a
brief meeting describing two upcoming projects, Julian introduced all
of us: the two guys were studying forestry and environmental
studies, one of the women was a cook and wanted to build a wood-burning
stove there to bake Quebecois baguettes (I mentioned that this was the
ideal environment for a solar oven), another was from some branch of
the government and yet another was a teacher...and us. Why were we
there??? Because when we first met Julian and he told us about his
water conservation/education project, I mentioned the piece that
Stephen and I did called "Body of Water." So, there we were.
Manuel gave us a hiking tour of their 50 hectares, pointing out that the side of the fence that they managed had much more growth and vegetation compared to the side that was left to the cattle to graze. Knowing that it rains in the summer in GTO, I asked how much rain they got there in the summer. It seems that they pretty much NEVER get any rain. The aquifer is being depleted, especially by some nearby commercial farmers who are planting things like broccoli and lettuce (not native to the area) solely for export to the USA. On our ride out to SMA the next day, our driver, Marco, said that no one lives in this area any more b/c there is no water and no work. Everyone goes to the States to find work. Global warming, bad agricultural practices supported by a corrupt government? It all adds up to a sad state of affairs for the people of this region.
However, Ceracaly has educational programs in about twenty school districts in the region and in-house workshops and education where kids of all ages come to live there while learning and helping the local communities. They have a nice library and a kitchen where lunch was served, buffet-style, after we returned from our hike. We bought a large container of mesquite-flower honey (delicious and less sweet than clover honey) and left a small donation for lunch. We are going to make a slightly larger donation to the foundation becasue we think they are struggling and doing good work.
Dawn
(top)
January 14
San Miguel with Andy and Susan
On Wednesday, we went to San Miguel de Allende for the day. Hugo their innkeeper, arranged a driver for us and he took us over on the high road so we could stop at a couple of churches. The photo on the right is the church in Valenciana. The alterpiece is made from gold. Then we stopped at an art gallery on the outskirts of SMA where we also had lunch. The lunch place, except for the guacamole was american food but very good. Susan and Dawn went shopping once Marco dropped us off at the square called the Jardin. I wondered around trying to get a feel for the place, For me, SMA is going to be an acquired taste. Andy went off on his own also.
Stephen
(top)
January 17
The Opening Party, 5 -7 PM, Calle de la Palma,
Celebrating la Cuenta de la Vida murale (the story of life)
This event has been on our mental calendar almost since we got here and on our real calendar for a couples of weeks, so it is one of those "Big Days". When Dawn first saw the mural on the wall in front of our house one of her first thoughts was that when Susan and Andy arrive we should have an opening party to show off the work. So the invitations went out and now we are cooking and cleaning and rearranging. We are trying to be ready for anywhere from three to thirty people to show up. Guacamole, chorizo meatballs, sun-dried tomatoes from the solar oven (it is sunny as promised), broiled mushrooms andsugar roasted peanuts from the store rounds out our food efforts. Still on our list is ice, tequila and paper towels. Pepe, the artist who lives next door, will sell me the beer as we need it.
Stephen
The party turned out to be a lot of fun. It ended up bing about fifteen people all together. Pepe got an old beat up table out in the street and leveled it with a couple of bricks. We put a cloth on it and had food and drink out there in the street, facing the mural. I was really happy that the Mexicans liked my Guacomole! I was afraid it might not be spicy enough for their taste, but they seemed to eat it up and said they liked it. It was a really interesting mix of people, both English and Spanish speakers. I think Pepe was pleased. He told the story of the mural to several folks who hadn't seen it. At the end, I encouraged Rachel to say a few words. She spoke beautifully in Spanish about Pepe's work on the mural and how it symbolizes our need to take care of the earth, and I think each other. I also tried to thank her and Adam, in Spanish, for having the idea of doing a mural and for supporting it financially. I wore a somewhat outrageous "costume" for the event, and Rachel looked lovely in her little sundress while Susan was her ever-chic self.
Stephen and I both felt that co-hosting this event was somehow symbolic
of our idea for this trip: We wanted to really "be" in a place and
participate in the community rather than feeling only like tourists.
Yesterday felt that way, rather wonderfully.
After the party, Susan, Andy, Rachel, Adam, Hugo, and Stephen and I all went to Los Campos for a late, light, but delicious dinner. This has become our favorite place to eat in GTO so far. Run by a very hard-working couple, he Canadian and she Mexican, they invent interesting, unusual dishes and have a lovely wine list, especially for Mexico. Two of my faves are aguacate frito (fried avocado) and champiñone lasagna which bears no resemblance to the rich, heavy Italian lasagna; it is delicate and delicious.
Dawn
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January 18
A Small Photo Gallery
Here is a link to the now finished "Review" of Clave Azul.
Tim's sunset from their house. This got left out of his Photo Album.
top)
January 24
Two/Three days in San Miguel de Allende
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January 39
Last Week in Guanajuato
Sunday - Shot more video. There is now a second charater who sort of follows Dawn up the hill, or waits for her. Of course, Dawn plays this part also. I have a cameo. We reshot sucessfully the out of focus stuff.
Monday - We ate again at Delicate Mitzu, a little Japanese lunch place with tables outside. Again, the food is good. The flavors are light and in contrast to what we have been eating. We stop by Alma de Sol and make a date for a drink with Hugo.
Tuesday - We have a couple of margaritas with Hugo and his always interesting guests. This time a couple from Seatle who moved to another part Mexico five years ago and their friends from Des Moines who among other things are the president of the ballroom dance club. Afterwards, We and Hugo get a last bite at Los Campos.
Departure and Arrival
The evening before we left we drank a bottle of Champagne and went to a sushi dinner, the six of us. Amber and Patrick are pros and were ordering stuff for the children while we were still sitting down. Later, when we got a chance to look at the menu, we ordered more food along with some sake for Dawn and myself. A sweet occasion. We walked back to the house in the rain with umbrellas flying and children's boots stomping. We all said goodnight and goodbye with long and deep hugs because early this morning after quick kisses as they awoke, we Ubered ourselves to the airport with Joe our driver and flew first to Los Angelos and then to Leon, Mexico. At the gate in Los Angeles during our layover, we meditate for twenty minutes even though just as we started, I heard the woman at the desk make an announcement that they needed some volunteers to sit in the exit row. So we sat and afterwards I hurried up the the desk to find that there are two seats left. So we flew with lots of leg room, something that we are not acustomed to. Going from group three to group one turned to be as big a perk as the flight was full and we avoided the fierce overhead space battle.
 |
| Guanajuato is
on this map at the bottom of the "L" of Leon above and to the left of
Mexico City. It is about 6,500' above sea level. It is a mountain
valley and therefore has steep sides on the two sides of town. |
But when we wheel out of the Customs area, Ramiro in his black hat and white shirt awaited us. He grabbed one of Dawn's roller bags and led us out to his car and we headed toward Guanajuato, about thirty-five minutes away. Just south of town, we make a stop at the Mega for olive oil, beer, wine and milk, the heavy things we might not want to carry up the hill. The Mega might be the biggest store I have ever been in. It has a bag check desk and it seems we walked a long way even before we got to the food. But we find enough food and get my bag back which had all my camera and computer gear and headed into Guanajuato itself. We drove through a tunnel and when we came out it was like drivig onto a Orson Welles set for one of his noir Mexican films. We go in and out of numerous small plazas and down many one way streets before we worked our way up the hill.
Stephen
Suddenly we turn and come to a stop. A few feet in front of us is small chapel, door like a garage-door wide open. Inside and spilling out onto the tiny plaza are folks attending a wake. We see the candles, religious icons, and the coffin in front of the simple altar. Ramiro removed his hat immediately out of respect. He could not park anywhere, so we hurriedly got the bags and groceries out of the back of the car, with the help of a neighborhood boy and carried/rolled everything down the callejon (a narrow street impassable by cars) to Casa Palma. I was very self-conscious, feeling like it was disrespectful for us to be doing this during a memorial service, but Ramiro said such open-to-the-street services happen often in Mexico, not to worry about it. Later we heard from Rachel that it was a girl who had died, and since she was poor, the neighbors all chipped in to get a coffin and have a service for her. Sad, but so sweet that a group of not so well-off neighbors cooperated to give dignity to her transition from this life into whatever she/they believe comes next.
 |
| We live in an
alley. Here is a small part of a mural about the history of
Mexico that is on our wall. It is about 60' long on a curved wall so
you can not see all of it at the same time. When it is done we will try
to post the whole thing. |
We were warmly greeted by Rachel and Adam, our landlords here. They felt like friends already since we had exchanged a number of emails and phone calls about food safety, getting here from the airport, their grey-water irrigation system, etc. It was a lovely welcome, and Rachel had prepared a nice bean and veggie dish with a few shrimp thrown in, a pickled cabbage salad, tortillas, some cheese and cream to put on top, and some cold cerveza.
 1969 VW bus owned by Rachel and Adam. This how they arrived in Guanajuato 10 years ago. |
 This is what we see from our terrace. |
Dawn
Another example of how they act on their world view is a website that Adam is developing where people can offer services to each other, swapping one person's talent and skill for another. Called WikiWonga, he is beta-testing it now. For instance, one person might offer some plumbing services in exchange for some expertise and help with developing a garden.
Stephen
 A close up of our solar oven |
December 6
First Six Days
Casa Palma is at once beautiful and idiosyncratic. They did a lot of the work in it themselves. The tiles throughout the casa are delightful and especially dense in the bathroom. Adam created plant-like lamps out of metal and built-in sofas out of wood. I believe he also made the three-burner gas range on a metal rack from which the pots and pans hang.
While there is a small electric device like a toaster oven, without the toaster function, the only other oven is a UiTzi, a solar oven that they have designed and have a business selling them. As you can see from the photo, it is a big box-like affair mounted on the corner of the terrace railing with mirrors and corn husk insulation. It is set up so that you can swivel it to follow the sun as the day progresses. We've had some pretty good success with baking sliced potatoes and making sun-dried tomatoes in there. Of course when it's cloudy, it doesn't work.
They also have solar-heated water (with a gas backup) and a somewhat elaborate gray-water system, with some drains going directly into the garden/orchard and others into a tank for filtration. A month or so before we got here, Rachel did some research to find out why her fig trees were looking unhappy. It seems that the elevation, dryness, and sun here make for a very basic soil. Apparently the sodium in detergents and soaps, especially sodium laurel sulfate-type ingredients that were coming through the gray-water are not good for a garden that is in low-acid soil. So we went hunting around San Francisco and came up with the old reliable Dr. Bronner's which we are using for dishes, showering, and mostly for laundry, with a drop of something more potent. It seems that no shampoos are entirely without sodium products, but I found an Aubrey Organics one that seems petty good. For you detail-oriented folks, the only thing that does not go into the gray-water system is the toilet which goes into city sewage.
One of the best parts of living here is that
Adam and Rachel live only a few hundred yards away. They have been so generous in showing us
where to get good veggies and other foods, introducing us to lots of
folks in town, both Mexican and Gringo, and generally taking care of
us. For instance, there's a man who sits at the entrance to the Mercado
Hidalgo and sells the most wonderful yogurt made from cows on a nearby
farm. The yogurt comes in a terra cotta jug, with a paper cover over it
it. It's only 25 pesos (under two bucks) for the whole thing, even if
you don't return the jug. (Right, Rachel in the garden.)Dawn
In Spanish, you don't take a walk, you give a walk. We have been giving ourselves many walks during this first week. We have gone to the covered market in the town center and up to the neighborhod butchers and fruit and vegetable stores near us. We went to both language schools in town and interviewed them and decided on Escuela Mexicana. The director gave us a little discount to put his school's prices in line with other. On Thursday we went there and were interviewed in Spanish and then give written tests in order to place us in classes.
We saw a sign for a dance concert
by students at the Universadad
Guanajuato at the Teatro Principal, seven dollars for both of us.
At the beginning there was an announcement that turned out to be a
program
order change which left us in a state of confusion most of the
evening. There was lots of good stuff with some not so good
work, but we had a good time. You haven't lived until you
have watched one dancer pitch eggs to another who was trying to hit
them with a bat into the audience. We were lucky on two counts,
the first is
that she didn't pitch very well and the second is that they were hard
boiled. There was some tango type dancing that wasn't very good, but
the evening was lead off by a very nice twelve minute solo. She
broke almost all my
rules, (like choice of music, squareness of the structure, over use of
gesture, etc.) but got away with it because of her beautiful
dancing and significant performance
skills. She could really dance, and made beautiful seamless
transitions to pedestrian movement and back. She connected
everything and always stayed inside her body. (Adam, above, is watering
the orchard)Stephen
(top)
December 12
First Week in Spanish Classes
OMG, I acted my way so well through the oral interview, that they put me in intermediate-level classes. On one day I was confronted with the imperfect and preterite verb tenses, the latter of which has six groups of irregularly conjugated verbs. I am still trying to keep all those verb endings straight, even after my "graduation."
We became friends with Lily and Tim, both English and in their forties. Lily was in all my classes while Tim was in Stephen's. They were great fun to have around and are just leaving town today. We will surely miss them. They had their motorcycles shipped from London to New York City and spent five months driving and camping throughout the USA, and then on to Mexico. They were held up for a month in Tennessee because Tim broke his ankle and had to rest it before being able to get on the moto again. Lily is taking a year off from her job as a detective with the London police (we call her our own Helen Mirren), and Tim, a multi-talented guy and former plumber, quit his job at the silk factory in order to take this trip. They plan to continue south, through Central and South America.
Dawn
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December 12
Beethoven's Ninth
We saw a sign for a concert with a Bach piece and Beethoven's Ninth and later with Rachel met Michael wno plays cello in the orchestra. So we made arrangements to get some tickets. Lily, Tim and Gilah from school and Rachel and Adam. We tried to get tickets but couldn't find the box office, so Adam and Rachel got them. They paid fifty pesos and we paid one hundred each (US$7). We tried to get to a pre concert talk in Spanish but it turned out that it was canceled. Anyway, the line was very long and slow so it took 30 minutes to get in. We did get a chance to talk a couple in line behind us, They wanted to speak English and we wanted to speak Spanish, which is what happened. Fortunately when we got into the theater, Tim was waiting for us and led up to very good seats in the orchestra. Rachel and Adam went to get a bite first and later found seats down left in the orchestra. The orchester belongs to the University but is a profession orchestra. Dawn thought the Bach was too slow, but I was pleased with sound that they got, especially the first violins.
The Beethoven was again astounding. It hardly seemed to be the same art form as Bach. It seemed like a theater of sound, very personal, very emotional. At the end, they played the last section again as an encore. The orchestra seemed to be ready for this but the chorus was not, and there was some frantic turning of pages as they found out where they were going to start. But even this was not the end, as, after more bows, the horn section began to play something to honor the first oboist who was retiring after this performance. The music swelled as other members joined in. Flowers appeared and he slowly worked his way downstage receiving hugs and handshakes from his colleagues until he took his last bow to the audience who responded warmly and appreciatively.
Stephen
(top)
December 14
FaceTime with Tess, Chloe and Sydney
We had a long chat with the girls and Tess showed me how to take a screen shot. Of couse, you get Dawn drinking her coffee and me holding down the power and home buttons simultaneously and trying to keep my arms from blocking the camera.
We gave them a tour of the place and discussed our family Christmas present and generally had a good time finding out what they had been doing that fall.
Stephen
(top)
December 14
Inside an Incan Sweat Lodge
Soon after we got here we met Rosario and were informed that she did massages and did something on Sunday that included mud, chanting and salt. I didn't pay much attention. On Saturday I found out that I was kind of signed up and I should contact Rosario only if I did not want to go. Under our rubric that life is meant to be an adventure, I silently progressed to what turned out to be a Incan Sweat Lodge Ceremony.
Stephen
Rosario is a woman, in spite of the "o" at the end of her name. We entered Rosario's property through a gate, then wound our way up through a lush garden that reminded me of Costa Rica. We were greeted by herself and Ana, a young Argentinian woman, both scantily clad and lying on a blanket in the sun. After we established that no one else was going to attend the ritual that day, we stripped down to underwear, and Rosario wafted incense all over each us while chanting. We then entered the igloo-shaped sauna, covered with green branches on the floor, low stools around the edges, hand-percussion instruments hanging on pegs on the walls. There was a pit in the center. Rosario then shoveled, about eight times, VERY hot rocks into the pit while we chanted something about being thankful for life, the water, and the salt that Ana sprinkled over the rocks. Then came the big whammy: Rosario poured water over the rocks, and the first blast of steam just about wiped me out. It was incredibly hot, and she had closed the door so it was very dark before my eyes adjusted. I have been claustrophobic in the past (although mostly overcame that with another strange ritual in New Mexico in 2001.) Still, I felt like I couldn't breathe and craved water but didn't want to interrupt the ritual. After the water-throwing, Rosario played a kunga drum and chanted, Ana joining in. All was in Spanish, of course, so we comprehended about 25% of it. Eventually we started some vocal harmonizing with them, even if we didn't know the words. Rosario was topless by then, and she and Ana danced with the drumming. I was afraid that if I got up to dance, I would keel over!
The rock-and-water bit was repeated three or four times. At some point, Rosario suggested I lie down on the branches which, of course, made me cooler, and I know that one can't faint if the head is at the same level as the body, so I relaxed. She also gave us some mint tea to drink which was very welcome. We got the important gist of the ritual: There are two doors in life, one is birth and one is death. Both are equally important and part of the whole path of existence. Death is very present in Mexican culture in general. We rubbed mud and salt on our bodies, presumably as a kind of purification of toxins. Ana took several turns drumming and speaking, and Rosario asked us if we wanted to add anything. I was able to get out, in my rudimentary Spanish, something I have often shared with my students, a Buddhist concept that if one does not think about death every day, one is not truly living. This is not a maudlin concept but a reminder to be grateful for the gift of human life. Stephen also said something about being present, using the two Spanish verbs of ser and estar in a thoughtful way. Rosario appreciated our participation.
After a couple of hours in there, she left the sauna/steambath and took a cold shower outside, then lay down in the sun. Ana followed suit, Stephen and I next. We drank water and ate fruit slices. After much hugging (and our leaving 500 pesos on the table), Rosario invited us to a mescal/dance improvisation party on Christmas. It sounds like an interesting way to spend Christmas in Mexico where it has been in the low 70's with sun and blue sky most days!
Dawn
The incense wafting part of the ritual was an exact copy of the hand scanning that one gets at the airport. What I said was, "Yo esto aquí, sino yo soy aquí". The first part mean I am here, the second part means here is me, or I am the here. It is not grammatical Spanish, but rather poetic speech. At least, that is what I told Juancarlos the next day when I had to talk about what I did the day before. Since then, we have been told by Rachel that we may have misinterpreted this invitation. Rachel is investigating. We may end up in the sweat lodge again.
Also, rubric is something printed in red that usually was a rule. I couldn't resist printing it in red.
Stephen
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December 16
Dinner Party
This party was on Tuesday instead of the previous Saturday in a attempt by Rachel to have enough sun for the solar oven to make pozole. The Saturday was cloudy but so was Tuesday so we had food beautifully grilled by Adam and more food expertly made by Rahel and I brought some marinated "Camarones gigantes con cabezas" big shrimp with heads. We ate like kings. Rachel believes that the shrimp with heads are more local because the Chinese won't ship the heads that far. I marinated the shrimp at home and cooked them there so they would be hot and ready. We had been introduced to Julian at the Beethoven Concert, but hadn't really gotten a chance to talk to him.
The general discussions were in English but small conversations might be in Spanish. I did get to tell Julian when were going to be in the Yucatan, using the prepositions and date formes I had learn that day, but otherwise I spoke English.
Above is a picture of a sobremesa (On table) which refers to those conversations over coffe, tequila or whatever at the end of a meal.
Stephen
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December 18
Posada
We celebrated a Posada today at the Escuela and also combined with our graduation ceremony and speeches. Posada means inn and what is celebrated is Joseph's and Mary's search for an inn to stay in in Bethlehem. It is celebrated for the nine days before Christmas. Two people play Mary and Joseph and after Joseph knocks on the outside door there is antiphonal singing between the people on the outside and the innkeeper and friends on the inside. In the end, we are let in and sing the last two verses together. An aside is that Dawn and I played the parts of Mary and Joseph. Emily was going to pay the part of our accompanying angel but her costume never appeared. I think that in a more authentic version, the group goes on to pray in front the nativity scene but we skipped to the graduation ceremony. This week the ceremeny was switched from Friday to be combined with the Posada. Their were adults finishing their classes in Spanish and kids and teenagers finishing English classes. There were Christmas carols in English by the Mexican kids and thank you speeches by the Americans speaking Spanish, with the exception of Lily who spoke Japanese and I am not exactly sure what Tim spoke,
Our Speech:
S: En los estados unidos , cuando se recibe un diploma, la ceremonia se hama COMMENCEMENT.
D: Entonces nosotros comenzamos un nuevo capitulo de la vida .
S: Vamos viajar en Mexico sin la ayuda de nuestras maestras y JuanCarlos.
D: PARA nosotros
S: POR ?
D: Será muy difícil a hablar POR mucho tiempo
S: PARA ?
D; Con la gente de Guanajuato cuando andamos PARA las calles
S: POR (correcting)
D: POR cinco semanas mas aquí.
PARA /POR?? (together loudly)
S: Queremos decir muchas gracias a todos
D: Por su paciencia, amabilidad y conocimiento
We were having some fun with use of Para and Por which both translate as "for" but are used at different times. There are nine rules for each word at Dawn's level. At mine, we learned three. For me, (Para mi), the difficulty in making the speech was in the correct pronunciation of all the vowels.
The event ended with the eating of tamales and a traditional punch, both of which we made on Wednesday in the school kitchen. The tamales were OK, but the punch was good, before and after the addition of a little tequila that I purchased for the occasion and shared with some of the adults at our end of the table.
The grand finale was the Piñata. I have 15 minutes of video of all the kids, teenagers and then adults swinging at the piñata. Juan Carlos and Edith were up on the balcony controlling its height and swing so it was hard to hit, especially after each person had been rotated around a couple of times before having at it.
Stephen
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December 19
Photos by Tim Harrington
You have begun to and will hear more about Lily and Tim, but right now I am going to present a gallery of his photograhy with appropriate notes.
 This bar invokes the film noir aspect of Mexico. Bohemia is a bottle of beer. I am holding same. In Tim's and my class, Cerveza was the most often used word when we had to generate an example of some grammatical usage. |
 The bar was actually more colorful than the black and white photo at the top. I met Brian here, A consultant at the GM plant (they make Silverados). I also met him the next time I was there. He might live here. He told the bartender, "If my head is on the bar just give me a straw." A bar is masculine in Spanish, but the bar itself is feminine. |
 The bar is in the yellow building behind the boy in the yellow shirt. Tim and Lily ran into Wolfie (from Berlin) in this plaza one day. They had last seen him when they passed him on his bicycle on a road in Baja. This reunion required an adjournment by all of us to said bar. |
 Tim and Lily came over a couple of times, one, so we could go on to Rachel's and Adam's for dinner, and the second time to deliver these photographs and hang out and drink cervezas on their last night before heading to Mexico City. |
 A nice shot from our terrace back through the glass wall, which heats the house during the day, into the room we use for Dawn's yoga, and getting to the bedroom which is under the terrace. |
 From the "Yoga Studio" looking through the hole in the wall that opens into our dining room and up to a sofa that folds out into a bed for people who are used to a bivy sack on El Capitaine, (Rachel's brother) |
 People have been clamoring for pictures of this event, but we had to wait for Tim to deliver these pictures. Note Mary's "pregnant" belly supplied by a pair of rolled up pants. We didn't have to do anything except stand at the door outside and wait to be let in. My big part was knocking on the door. |
 Singing. The young blonde woman is Emily. She was supposed to be our protecting angel but the costume never showed up. We never did figure out the tune but we sang anyway. Must have been hard for her, because she had sung in a church choir. She knew at least three verses of every English language Christmas song that we sang while making the tamales and punch for this Posada. |
 Making tamales. They had a lot of lard in them. We also made the punch. |
 Tim, playing the part of the invisible shepherd Paparazi, takes a shot of the semi-reluctant Mary before her big entrance. |
 Juancarlos, as the director of the Escuela Mexicana, has been the center of our lives for the past two weeks. I took a private lesson with him every day the second week to try to get out of first gear. he is a lovely gentlemen who greatly cared about us all. |
 Tim getting his diploma. |
 Why is that man laughing? Because one of his prized students is accepting her diploma with a short speech in Japanese. Lily was in Japan for three years teaching math and science. For those of you that only look at our pictures in this travelogue, she is now a detective for the London Metro Police. She told some great stories, almost none of which can we repeat. |
 We graduated also. We seem to be happy about it. Don't know why we took half our Posada costumes off. Looks like a cruise ship event. Are we crossing the equator? |
 Dawn looking at her crib sheet on my phone. I had thought that I had memorized my part but actually I have almost no memory of our little presentation. I remember that people laughed at the right spots and Juan Carlos and I exchanged a big hug when it was over. |
 Finally, everybody tried a hand at the Piñata, but we will spare you the seventy five photos and fifteen minutes of video except some Dawn. This picture is after the stick broke about half way through and the reason you don't see anyone else in the shot because it is too dangerous. |
 Studying between classes or something at the school. The classrooms are visible behind us. |
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December 20
A drink and a show
One's reaction to having musicians come to your table to play and then requesting money either for playing or going away is highly personal. We like it, or have so far. Afterwards, the lead singer went over and spoke a few words with a woman sitting at a table in the back. The woman turned out to be the owner and our best guess was that she was getting a cut from their takings. But of coursee, we have to make a lot of stuff up.
Stephen
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December 21
Another Posada
If I had found something about dancing on Sunday in Guanajuato, we would have been down in town dancing, instead we were up in our house watching online a kind of goofy movie called "Yes, Georgio" made in 1982 with Luciano Pavoratti playing Georgio. We were feeling kind of disappointed. In the middle of one of Pavoratti's arias, I began to hear a faintly familar tune that was not really a tune but a cadence. I said to Dawn, "I hear the Posada song".
I went to the dining room and opened the door to the terrace. It wasn't any louder. I circled back to the front door and opened it. Closer. We got our shoes on and opened the door to the little alley where we live. There was no one there about to knock on our door, but up the street in front of the house of Pepe, our next door neighbor, were about forty people with candles and sparklers and two children carrying a nativity scene slowly on the street.
We went up to see more of what was happening. The Mexicans, at least in our neighborhood, don't let you lurk, so immediately we were handed two small candles and a couple of sparklers. The song was the same, recognizable by the words and the tune that is not a tune. We didn't have our lyric sheet from the school, so our ability to sing along was minimal. The pattern was the same, sing at the door, then the people behind the door would sing back. But here, the children would march down the alley, swing around and go to the top of the alley, and then return to the door. At some point, they would change bearers, though I never saw it happen. Each time, as they went past me, a different child would look up at me and give me a smile.
I knew what was coming. Once the door was opened, this group of paraders would go in to the house and there would be prayers, maybe long prayers and I was ready to call it an evening.
Stephen
A little clarification: Instead of people dressing up as Maria and José, the children were carrying a kind of stretcher with small statues of them. Each time they circled around to the door (could it have been nine times?), the singing seemed to get louder and more demanding. The words are something like, "Don't be inhumane; let us in; my wife is about to give birth." Meanwhile, part of the celebration is throwing very loud firecrackers down the street. Finally the people inside open the door and everyone in the street is ushered in. We hesitated, not wanting to intrude on their ritual, but they motioned us in, and I felt that it would be rude not to enter. A couple of steep steps down a narrow passageway, and we could see a small, covered garden area with a creche in the center where the Mary & Joseph statues were placed. A young woman, presumably Pepé's wife, said a series of prayers or parts of the story, each followed by an antiphonal group response. The little space was packed with people. A couple of very young children on the steps in front of us kept re-lighting their candle-stubs and putting them on cardboard holders, with strands of hair getting threateningly close to the flames, bringing out the worried grandma in me.
While this was happening, a couple of teenagers passed out styrofoam cups of puncha to the crowd, the same wonderful hot fruit punch we had made at school. Stephen and I kept trying to pass the cups up to the people behind us, but they kept insisting that we keep and drink one. After the talking/chanting was over, a 20-something man squeezed by us twice to retrieve two piñatas from a room behind us. He climbed a ladder up to the roof and attached the piñatas to a rope on the roof. Then the passagway door was opened again. As we exited, a young woman was passing out bolsas (bags) of candy to everyone on their way out. I at first refused, saying "Por los niños" but when everyone came out they still had some bags left and insisted that I take one. This morning we gave them away to the young woman who comes to clean our house on Mondays. A greater treat than candy for me is the fact that someone actually does clean our house, unlike when we are home in Boston.
We got some video of the ensuing piñata party. They seem to start with the smallest children whacking at the thing, some even in their parents' arms. Gradually the kids get older, stronger, and more aggressive with the stick. Of course the guys on the roof pull the piñata just out of range sometimes as the older kids whack away at it. The song gets louder, and the crowd gets more excited by the minute. Finally the thing splits, and candy comes pouring out to a surge of children clambering to pick up the (wrapped) sweets from the street.
Returning to our house and resuming the somewhat tacky movie we had started, I thought about what a contrast of singing we experienced last evening, from the amazing range and breath control of Pavarotti's Italian arias to the utterly chaotic, non-harmonic voices of our neighbors singing the traditional Posada song. I was so touched that they included us in their celebration. Although not a rich neighborhood economically, it is a neighborhood rich in generosity and warmth. To me (para mi!), this is what the "Christmas spirit" is all about.
Dawn
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December 22
Hike to a Presa
 If we are going to walk, we are going to have to drink some coffee. These two beauties are from Café Tal. I worked on the laptop, (Couldn't get onto the internet) and Dawn looked for a Gym |
 We were looking for Casa Tia Auna, which we never found, or we found it but it was under renovation. Anyway, we kept going and began to the Olive Press place that we found on the map. |
 Maybe it was time to get out my phone and look up "Presa", because this thing looked like a... |
 Dam with a reservoir behind it. And in fact, the old house with the Galleries and restaurants in it was the House of the dam. But we moved on, finding this place an odd combination with Atlantic City as one of the components. |
Also made me
think of Stow Lake in San Francisco, with the paddle boats.-DK
|
 At the other end were restaurants and a boat rental place. |
 The two girls that were rowing could not conceive that you might row with your back to where you want to go, so they were working their way down to the other end of the reservoir by back paddling. They were also keeping a close eye on the ducks who were after food. |
 When we got to the restaurants, we continued through a small park to another dam, behind which was the dry, high desert in which Guanajuato is situated. |
 We walked back down to the Casa de la Presa and had lunch. It was a cute place, but the food was not good enough to warrant a return visit. Dawn did notice the French couple was having lunch around the corner from us |
|
We had seen
them at the coffee place in the morning so greeted each other again in
French. They are from Montreal. My French has already started
deteriorating into something like Franspangnol.-DK
|
 Next door, we found a studio with beautiful walls and... |
 very high ceiling. The French speaking couple turned out to be Canadian as we spoke to them for a moment or two and Dawn began to worry she will lose all her French. |
 After lunch we had our first experience with the public bus. It cost 5 pesos ($.35) to ride it and it took us back to the Centro where we got off at the market to do some shopping. |
The bus is a
lot older and more beat up than it looks in this picture...so am I,
actually! I love that the driver was playing loud Mexican
music...to cover up the loud motor and general street noise.-DK
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December 24-26
Two Meals Out
Christmas eve, we went down to find a Mass. We were not sucessful. There seemed to be no signs about when the masses would be so we took a picture of the Casa Ofelia menu and thought we would come back. Juan Carlos touted it as a pretty good restaurant for real Mexican food. We went home and collected our chicken dinner which was cooling its heels in the solar oven. We put it on the slow burner and waited for it to finish.
The next day, Christmas, was busy as we facetimed the children, and then climbed up to El Pipila, the large statue on the other hill. We found our way down and discovered we were hungry so we had a Christmas day dinner Casa Ofelia. It was very nice, Dawn had the Posole verde which is a traditional dish for the holiday and I had a meat thing and a nice tempranillo from Spain. We were the only Gringos there. When we got back, there was an invitation from Adam and Rachel to stop over for drinks and Christmas cheer. We looked up some lyrics of Deck the Halls and seranaded them as they came to the door. We exchanged little things as presents.
The
day after Christmas, St. Stephen's day, we were headed to Clave Azul,
the Blue Nail, when we decided to stop into Alma de Sol to see if Hugo
was there. This is the place where Susan and Andy will stay when
they come day for the middle of January. It is a beautiful
B&B in the middle of Guanajuato. We know this because he was
there, in his small printmaking shop next to the B&B and after we
introduced ourselves as Susan's friends, he gave us a grand tour of his
shop and the B&B. Since he was waiting to have Margheritas on
his roof deck with the two couples who were staying there, he insisted
that we join them. In fact, we got a head start on them. They
arrived and the conversation roamed widely over a large range of
topics. The couple from California left to follow the
Callejóneades, which is the minstral show which leads their audience
through the streets of Guanajuato. We left sometime after that
and guided the other couple to a restaurant that Hugo
recommended. It was full.....Stephen
So we took them over to La Taula again, the place near our school where we had a nice lunch a couple of weeks ago. We all shared four interesting tapas plates: shrimp, little BBQ ribs, Swiss chard filled with goat cheese and a kind of smoked trout salad. All very good; plus a total of five glasses of the house red. the grand total for the four of us was barely $40 (American). The exchange rate is pretty amazing right now. Hence we left a more generous tip than is usual for Mexico; our camerero was so patient with our limited language skills and long stay at the table. The other couple seemed to think that we are so adventuresome to live up the hill in a Mexican barrio and walk everywhere, carrying groceries, etc. We think that they are way more adventuresome than we as they have been to Tibet, China, Cambodia, Japan, Ecuador, Iran, Afghanistan and had some amazing experiences in those places. They are our generation, and he seems to be retired from something we didn't really get a clear idea of, but his work took him to China "more than one hundred times." Hmm, state department? CIA? She has not yet retired from teaching English as a second language at the university in Madison, Wisconsin.
We walked them back to their B&B. Hugo invited us to have breakfast there today, but we declined as we know we will join Susan and Andy for many a breakfast when they are staying there. All in all, it was one of those completely unexpected and congenial evenings.
Dawn
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December 29
Clave Azul
The day started of with buying a bottle of Don Simon Seleccione for 45 pesos. We think this is the wine we had a Casa Ofelia which we liked. The internet says it was made for Whole Foods. People seem to like it but we shall see. It has no vintage on it so it must be some kind of blend.
We are looking for a place to have a meal on New Year's Eve. La Vie en Rose, our pain au chocolat, place is having one but we have not gotten to see the restaurant. This day they were closed.
So
we walked over to San Fernando and hung out on a bench and watched
people. Forever entertaining. Then we walked up to Clave Azul for a
drink. On the internet this place is sometimes called a restuarant and
sometimes a bar. We walked in a found a table and waited.
The bartender was busy and the cook was deliverying food to the
tables. This pause gave us time to look over the decorations that
filled the place. Old radios, religious shrines, mementos of dream
lives filled the walls. The waiter came over and we negotiated a
round of margaritas and asked if we wanted the tapas. In this
bar, you get a tapas for every drink. I don't think you get to
choose. A soup came first, then with a round of cervezas, some
garlically paprica potatoes. There was a family at the table from
which the picture was taken. A little baby got all the
attention. Guitar players wandered in and out, One played a very
romantic song for Dawn. We changed seats at our small table
so that we had different views. The wall were filled with crazy
decorations. When you arrive, go up the right hand staircase to get to
one of three levels, (the terrace was closed when we were there.
A good place. Probably will be different when you are there, but
very definitely a place to try. Let's all keep the adventure in travel.Stephen
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December 30
La Vie en Rose and Walk Home
We have been picking up their very good french pastries on the way to school and sometimes some sinful thing on the way home to share for dessert. Today we went there for lunch. A very simple place. You order downstairs before you go up the the dining room upstairs. We ate inside and did not eat at this very theatrical table that overlooked the street from a tiny balcony. The place upstairs was very elegant, the wine from Chile very good and we had a long chat with both the patron and patroness. They came to Mexico because their daughter fell in love with a Mexican man. So now they have a French restaurant in a very Mexican town. Good Luck. In order to make her pastries she has to import her butter, sugar, almond paste and chocolate from France. (In Mexico, the butter has water in it, the sugar isn't white enough and the chocolate is too bitter, she says.) We will come back for dinner.
Stephen
The entire conversation with Nathalie was in French, and as the hour progressed, she spoke faster and faster. Finally Stephen asked her to slow down...which she did for about one sentence! Actually it was a relief for me because I got so much more of what she was saying than when I am listening to rapid-fire Spanish speakers.
They are originally from Normandy. When she heard that we will be in Paris for the spring and have not yet visited Normandy, she gave me her email address and said she would be happy to give me names of places we must see, eat, or sleep in. We three reminisced about sitting by the harbor in Cancale, Brittany, eating fresh-from-the-sea oysters with a nice bottle of Muscadet. A smile came to her face and her eyes rolled up saying, Ah, cela, c'est la vie.
Dawn
Walk Home
 |
 |
We watched 'Under The Volcano" last night on YouTube. It is about Mexico in the thirties. We haven't gone into a cantina yet.
(I
will never go into a cantina. If you read about them, it is a pretty
scrappy men-only kind of environment. Plus "Under the Volcano" is a
seriously depressing movie/book.-DK)
Stephen
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January 1
Feliz Año Nuevo
Last night was "First Night in Guanajuato." We saw a flyer that said the city council and mayor were inviting us to a big New Year's Eve celebration, for free. The flyer said it started at 5:30. Now knowing about Mexican time, we wandered down to the Plaza de la Paz at about 6:15 to find a very high stage set up with lots of trusses, state-of-the-art moving LED lights, and tons of speakers, all in front of the Basilica. Temporary seating was set up and only a few folks occupied the first two rows. So we found good seats in the second row...and waited...and waited. Three different sets of people sat in the seats next to us and left. At 7:00, the show began. Lights popped on to the brightest level of white light I have ever seen on a stage. The emcees were a man and a woman who epitomized the fast-talking, smoothe, hyping each other style of emcees from variety shows the world over. It didn't matter that we only understood about 10% of what they were saying. Their clothes, body language and demeanor said it all.
We walked up our hill and reheated the lovely chicken dinner with garden herbs that we had made in the solar oven that afternoon. We got a couple of internet radio stations that played oldies, rolled up the rug and danced. At some point, I started to doze on the couch and was awakened by loud fireworks. We had the most amazing view of a fireworks display that I have ever seen in my life, right from our dining room and deck at the Casa Palma. 'Twas a clear night with a half moon and stars, and the display was really beautiful. After that, Stephen found a well-shot and edited video of a 40-year reunion concert by James Taylor and Carole King at the Troubador. Oh wow, we were high on nostalgia last night...I feel the earth move under my feet and you've got a friend and all...Went to bed at 1:30 a.m. to the continuing sound of neighbors' parties and "private" fireworks.
Dawn
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January 7
First Week of the Year
We started off with a power failure in the morning. It was interesting to find out what we had and didn't have. Solar oven, yes; gas burners, yes; computer, ipad, phones, until the batteries ran out; wifi; no; landline telephone, yes - but the only people we call have a cordless powered phone - so not really. In the middle of meditation the power came back on and our first, but not last, excitement of the year was over. The rest if the day we took it easy, things around the house etc.
The Alhondiga is a granary where the Mexican War of Independence against Spain started. It is now a museum and a very beautiful one, It has a large outdoor sculpture garden surrounded by two floors of galleries. It starts with Pre-Columbian stamps and works its way to the present and leaves a few galleries for current artists. They let us in for free because we are over sixty which is always nice. We crossed Cerro de las Ranas off our list of restuarants after a return visit after the museum where Dawn got canned mushrooms in her quesadilla. We went there mostly because it had the only table in the plaza that was in the sun. Of course, the earth moved and we were in the shade in ten minutes. It is getting a little colder here, but we are not going to say any more about that.
I am beginning to work on a new video for Dawn walking up stairs. This one is the nine minute trip from the Plaza de la Paz to our front door. I have shot a timing video and now have shot Dawn making the trip from the bottom to the top. We are on hold now (see below),
Stephen
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January 10
A Bump in the Road
Dawn is much better. While on a shopping trip on Thursday in the leather district of Leon (the airport city for Guanajuato) a sore knee and hamstring cramp turned into joint pain and then into chills and fever and full body pain. Thursday night was difficult which lead to a visit to the Centro Medico la Presa the next day, once she could walk a little. She was examined and had a blood test. Dr. Ricardo Garcia was thoughtful, kind and thorough. Dawn rested in bed in a private room for an hour while we waited for the results of the tests. They came back with nothing too serious and a course of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories was prescribed along with a lot of fluid. She has been resting since then and we have been taking cabs, and learning how to call them. I need to say that Rachel, from whom we rent our house, came with us to the doctor to make it possible to talk to and understand him and that her concern and bringing teas and pedialyte to help re-hydrate Dawn turned this event into just a bump in the road.
More.
Dawn is back to her delightful healthy self and we are both thankful every day.
Stephen
Stephen liked this blanket they put on me at the clinic, but sorry I look kind of awful. Am definitely better now!
Dawn
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January 11
Susan and Andy Arrive
They arrived last night and we joined them for breakfast at Hugo's B&B, Alma de Sol. They looked great. surviving with ease their trip from New England. Sunday at Hugo's suggestion we took a cab to Marfil and went to a jazz concert at the Gene Byron Museum. Gene is short for Eugenia, whose paintings fill her former home. We will send more info after some internet research. We had dinner at El Midi, a French Bistro with Mexican undertones. As the week progressed, Dawn returned to normal, walking the hills and doing some yoga. She is still taking ibuprofen and will be for a couple of more days. The video piece is on hold. We have been going out to dinner with Susan and Any and shopping, (I bought a Panama hat for myself). Hugo has invited us to breakfast any time we want and we have taken him up on his offer a couple of times. The fruit and fresh squeezed orange juice are great and what follows (gorditas, huevos rancheros, fritatas) are truly excellant.
On Friday we went to hear the symphony again. This time they played a short Mozart, The Rodrigo Guitar and Symphony Piece and Beethoven's Sixth. We dressed up for the occasion, (I wore my new hat) and had a great time. (Photo above)
Stephen
(top)January 13
CERECALY
Ceracaly is an acronym for CEntro REgional de Capacitacion del Agua Las Yerbas.
We met up with Julian and a van filled with four young women, two dogs and us. The high road to Ceracaly was beautiful. It felt wonderful to get out of the city and see the hills from the other side. We went through a national forest and then into Dolores Hidalgo where we picked up two young men. Picture this seating arrangement: Two young women sharing the front seat with a large dog mostly on the floor but wanting to be in a lap, four of us in the middle seat, two others in the back with another dog. No one but the driver was really able to wear a seat belt, but happily we all survived the twisty, precipitous drive with Julian occasionally on his cell phone trying to raise money for the foundation.
As the trip progressed, the land
became more and more arid, supporting only cactus and an occasional mesquite tree. When we got to the
center, which has been there for twenty years now, we were greeted by
the administrative head and Manuel, the all-around handy-man. In a
brief meeting describing two upcoming projects, Julian introduced all
of us: the two guys were studying forestry and environmental
studies, one of the women was a cook and wanted to build a wood-burning
stove there to bake Quebecois baguettes (I mentioned that this was the
ideal environment for a solar oven), another was from some branch of
the government and yet another was a teacher...and us. Why were we
there??? Because when we first met Julian and he told us about his
water conservation/education project, I mentioned the piece that
Stephen and I did called "Body of Water." So, there we were.Manuel gave us a hiking tour of their 50 hectares, pointing out that the side of the fence that they managed had much more growth and vegetation compared to the side that was left to the cattle to graze. Knowing that it rains in the summer in GTO, I asked how much rain they got there in the summer. It seems that they pretty much NEVER get any rain. The aquifer is being depleted, especially by some nearby commercial farmers who are planting things like broccoli and lettuce (not native to the area) solely for export to the USA. On our ride out to SMA the next day, our driver, Marco, said that no one lives in this area any more b/c there is no water and no work. Everyone goes to the States to find work. Global warming, bad agricultural practices supported by a corrupt government? It all adds up to a sad state of affairs for the people of this region.
However, Ceracaly has educational programs in about twenty school districts in the region and in-house workshops and education where kids of all ages come to live there while learning and helping the local communities. They have a nice library and a kitchen where lunch was served, buffet-style, after we returned from our hike. We bought a large container of mesquite-flower honey (delicious and less sweet than clover honey) and left a small donation for lunch. We are going to make a slightly larger donation to the foundation becasue we think they are struggling and doing good work.
Dawn
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January 14
San Miguel with Andy and Susan
On Wednesday, we went to San Miguel de Allende for the day. Hugo their innkeeper, arranged a driver for us and he took us over on the high road so we could stop at a couple of churches. The photo on the right is the church in Valenciana. The alterpiece is made from gold. Then we stopped at an art gallery on the outskirts of SMA where we also had lunch. The lunch place, except for the guacamole was american food but very good. Susan and Dawn went shopping once Marco dropped us off at the square called the Jardin. I wondered around trying to get a feel for the place, For me, SMA is going to be an acquired taste. Andy went off on his own also.
Stephen
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January 17
The Opening Party, 5 -7 PM, Calle de la Palma,
Celebrating la Cuenta de la Vida murale (the story of life)
This event has been on our mental calendar almost since we got here and on our real calendar for a couples of weeks, so it is one of those "Big Days". When Dawn first saw the mural on the wall in front of our house one of her first thoughts was that when Susan and Andy arrive we should have an opening party to show off the work. So the invitations went out and now we are cooking and cleaning and rearranging. We are trying to be ready for anywhere from three to thirty people to show up. Guacamole, chorizo meatballs, sun-dried tomatoes from the solar oven (it is sunny as promised), broiled mushrooms andsugar roasted peanuts from the store rounds out our food efforts. Still on our list is ice, tequila and paper towels. Pepe, the artist who lives next door, will sell me the beer as we need it.
Stephen
The party turned out to be a lot of fun. It ended up bing about fifteen people all together. Pepe got an old beat up table out in the street and leveled it with a couple of bricks. We put a cloth on it and had food and drink out there in the street, facing the mural. I was really happy that the Mexicans liked my Guacomole! I was afraid it might not be spicy enough for their taste, but they seemed to eat it up and said they liked it. It was a really interesting mix of people, both English and Spanish speakers. I think Pepe was pleased. He told the story of the mural to several folks who hadn't seen it. At the end, I encouraged Rachel to say a few words. She spoke beautifully in Spanish about Pepe's work on the mural and how it symbolizes our need to take care of the earth, and I think each other. I also tried to thank her and Adam, in Spanish, for having the idea of doing a mural and for supporting it financially. I wore a somewhat outrageous "costume" for the event, and Rachel looked lovely in her little sundress while Susan was her ever-chic self.
After the party, Susan, Andy, Rachel, Adam, Hugo, and Stephen and I all went to Los Campos for a late, light, but delicious dinner. This has become our favorite place to eat in GTO so far. Run by a very hard-working couple, he Canadian and she Mexican, they invent interesting, unusual dishes and have a lovely wine list, especially for Mexico. Two of my faves are aguacate frito (fried avocado) and champiñone lasagna which bears no resemblance to the rich, heavy Italian lasagna; it is delicate and delicious.
Dawn
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January 18
A Small Photo Gallery
Here is a link to the now finished "Review" of Clave Azul.
Tim's sunset from their house. This got left out of his Photo Album.
 A shoe store in Leon. One of many we visited. Dawn is already grabbing her leg |
 On the trip to San Miguel. The action of the nail drivers caught our eye. |
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January 24
Two/Three days in San Miguel de Allende
 Photo of Casa Colibri's inner patio taken from the living room at night while we had some tea. |
We returned to San Miguel de Allende for three days and enjoyed it much more than our brief visit the week before. At the recommendation of Anna, an artist friend whom I met twenty-five years ago when we were both in residence in La Napoule, France, we stayed at Casa Colibri. It is a lovely four-room old home, traditional Mexican style, run by Miguel who was a very helpful host. You can see other photos on their website, if interested. We took the Primera Plus Bus over from Guanajuato. Buses are very different in Mexico, much better than the US. There is a stewardess on the platform who stands behind a little stand and takes your ticket and gives your a soda or water and a snack before your board the bus. The seats are all reserved and there are video screens in the bus and headphones at every seat. Reading lights, USB charging stations fill out the amenities. Wednesday when we arrived and debarked from the Primera Plus bus, we took a city bus into town. It was a pretty wild ride. Very crowded, so we were standing, with shoulder bag, back pack and rolling carry-on bag. More people kept getting on the bus so we squished farther to the back. The odd thing is that when an occasional passenger got off, the person sitting in the aisle seat never moved over to allow someone else to sit down. As we got closer to the centro, there were loads of pedestrians in the street. The bus made a final stop before the Jardin where we had expected it to stop, and we found ourselves walking with the crowds in a temporary pedestrian-only zone. Actually, it turned out to be closer to our destination than the other stop would have been. |
This is a travelogue about reflection so I shot a picture of the reflecting ball on the coffee table in the living room. We are coming close to the end of our stay in this part of Mexico and there is plenty to ponder. JSB |
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San Miguel de Allende is a lovely town, filled with Gringo retirees! You can get along there with no Spanish at all...which is why we came here to Guanajuato, to be in a more Mexican context. Of course the gentrification brings good things too, like a cleaner, more spiffed up town, lots of art, great restos and stores and many cultural activities. |
| When we arrived at Casa
Colibri, Miguel told us that it was Ignacio Allende's birthday, a big
hero in the War of Independence, and the town was celebrating with
parades, and tonight there would be Mariachi bands and fireworks in
front of the Parroquia. The bands all play simultaneously and it is
pretty loud. Four lights for the stage and seven on the audience. |
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And
what fireworks they were! I have never stood under fireworks
displays before; it was a bit scary as we watched the hot ash rain down
over the trees in the Jardin. It
wasn't so worried about the ash coming down as the fiery green ones
that would occasionally plummet to earth still blazing away, JSB
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| Not only did they do the
fireworks in the sky, but they had built a
huge wooden tower with spinning wheels and a portrait of Allende, all
of which ignited and turned at various times, throwing off sparks and
culminating with the very top fiery star that not only spun but
eventually sailed off the structure into the sky...landing I do not
know where! I
assumed the the star, which was about five feet in diameter was metal,
but found out later it was made of bamboo. I guess that makes me feel
safer but I am not sure. JSB
Thanks to the people who took these fireworks photos, because we didn't. After the fireworks, we went home and had tea at our Case. Lunch at Via Orgainics had been so huge that we did not fell the need for dinner. |
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Before
the Flamenco show, we went for a drink and tapas at Mescaleria. Our
friends Marilyn and Frank had been in SMA last winter and loved this
place and the Mexican-Swiss couple that run it. It was early so
few people were there, but we enjoyed tasting two different types of
Mescal and a nice Margarita as well as some tapas. Stephen ordered the
"Mescal tasting plate" that included fried grasshoppers. I eschewed the
grasshoppers while Stephen chewed them, saying they were crunchy, salty
and tasty. The place is very chic, with nice lighting, and Monica
the host, is indeed lovely. Unfortunately we did not get to meet her
husband that evening. |
| On
the way the theater, we watched some folk dance on the same stage as
the mariachi bands. They danced in the dark and were good enough
that it was sad to move on to the Flamenco performance at the Teatro
Angela Peralta. Having had much experience with the Ramon de los Reyes
company, Stephen and I were prepared to be underwhelmed especially
since there were no male dancers on the program. Stephen and I missed
the incredible skills and talents of Isak and Nino, Claire and Ramon's
sons. However, the choreographer/lead dancer was really
excellent,
Patricia Linares. Although her school and home base are in SMA, she
trained with many great teachers, also in Madrid, and has an
international reputation. She did a very nice job of creating
transitions between pieces and using the other two less skilled dancers
in ways that emphasized their strengths. Her footwork in particular was amazing: clear, fast, complex, precise. The guitarist, Juan Rosas Avila was fantastic. We paid the top price (which was the equivalent of about $14) for two good orchestra seats. About
two thirds the way through the program she did a very nice male solo,
dressed in pants, a shirt and vest. I wish she had wore a hat,
but that would have caused the lighting guy even more problems.
Everywhere we have been they are now using LED lights, but have
neglected to upgrade their control systems so the lights flicker when
they dim if they fade at all. JSB
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It is a big shopping town,
and I am generally an awful shopper.
Had not bought a thing for myself on the whole trip, but we did get a
few nice things including a Zapotec runner, and Stephen fell in love
with a beautiful Zapotec, natural-dyed, hand-woven rug. We bought it
from the guy who made it in his village, Teotitlán del Valle,
Oaxaca. It is huge,
so we had it shipped and paid a little more to have it done so securely
with a tracking number
to our home during the small window of time at the end of February when
we
will be there. Let's hope it shows up! Dawn
had been looking for a table runner and hemming and hawing as she does
and I told her, about fifteen minutes before we walked into this store,
that she should only buy what she loves. Oh boy! I fell in love with
the biggest rug in the store. On the wall, it was smaller. one side
covered by another rug and the bottom three feet pinned up.
JSB
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| We
tried to get into the church called St. Felipe Neri, but we were only
able to get into the courtyard. I was taking a picture of the
stone structure when two little girls came up to me and said they
wanted me to take their picture. I did, of course, and they seemed to
enjoy looking at it and holding my phone. I asked if they were hermanas (sisters), and they said "No", so I said "Amigas?" I guess that was the case. Dawn |
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I
know why the Mexicans surround so many of their statues with glass. It
is to save them from the devout who would touch them to ruin.
Here, spiritual connection involves touching. That is certainly not wrong. Here, Christ is crawling forward with his crown of thorns and his royal purple robe, lit strongly from the lower left corner. Nothing in the Bible leads me to this statue, just the silence of suffering. |
| We spent a lot of time in
museums and galleries. Here is a photo of a painting that probably
needs to be opened in another tab in order to be seen. To me it asked
the question, "What am I?" and then waited very patiently for my answer. Still waiting. I learned that if silverwork is displayed so beautifully in a gallery, it becomes necessary for the gallery keeper to tell you things are for sale. |
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On our last morning,
Cicero and Q, friends of the above named Anna, invited us to breakfast
at Cafe Monet. The place was packed and it took a few minutes to
get a table. Lively conversation followed. Art, living in San
Miguel, our former academic lives, life in retirement, working for
Disney, presenting at Disney. They are lively people and good
models for us as we explore our own lives. |
| Dawn makes me be in a photo
once in a while. This is on a walk that
Miguel designed for us the first day. It made all the difference
for
our stay. We saw many different aspects of San Miguel, the shops,
the
neighborhoods, the parks and maybe most important, a playground. Here, we saw a gymnastic couple, surrounded by three spotters, perfect the girl's mount to stand on her partner's single outstretched arm. Players of all ages and genders at a basketball camp practiced that defensive reverse gear that every player needs in order to play full court basketball. Two of the girls were dancers and they turned the backwards side shuffle into chassées which made them twice as slow. Greater San Miguel made its appearance and we, as tourists, felt smaller. We are lazy tourists. We miss a lot. We don't seem to care. Mexico City approaches and it will speed us up as we have only four working days. We will plan three and wander around Condesa on the fourth. Or not. Stephen |
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January 39
Last Week in Guanajuato
Sunday - Shot more video. There is now a second charater who sort of follows Dawn up the hill, or waits for her. Of course, Dawn plays this part also. I have a cameo. We reshot sucessfully the out of focus stuff.
Monday - We ate again at Delicate Mitzu, a little Japanese lunch place with tables outside. Again, the food is good. The flavors are light and in contrast to what we have been eating. We stop by Alma de Sol and make a date for a drink with Hugo.
Tuesday - We have a couple of margaritas with Hugo and his always interesting guests. This time a couple from Seatle who moved to another part Mexico five years ago and their friends from Des Moines who among other things are the president of the ballroom dance club. Afterwards, We and Hugo get a last bite at Los Campos.
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Wednesday - Going by a door
into
the University we notice that it is open for the first time since we
have been here. We go through into a very stark museum showing
drawings, oils and videos. |
| I took a photo of the
statement on the wall. |
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Thursday - We finished Escaleros,
the video about a walk at night. We shot the surprise ending and I
stayed up late editing the new stuff in. We put in music that I
grabbed from my Itunes Library which turned out to be from Kenny, our
neighbor in Roslindale and although he played on the album, I am not
sure he can give us permission to use it. We are talking about
him doing some new music for it when we return in June. I use the mural
in the credits, but I am not sure about that. I am using Imovie as my editor. It can't do everything by a long shot, but what it does, it does very fast and easily. With Final Cut Pro, I used 5% of the features, here I use them all. At left, a video still. |
| We also had drinks
with Juan Carlos, the director of Escuela Mexicana.
I should have been embarrassed by the disrepair of my Spanish. He said
a couple of interesting things. He never notices the weather as
in, "What a fine day." He just expects it to be that way. He also
said that people don't worry about in what fashion they are going to
die.
They expect to move in with some family member and die at home.
This is for many people in the United States an ideal, but it is not
guaranteed. |
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| Friday - We are saying
goodbye to the people who have been selling us
our food.
The good thing about this store is that they use a cash register that
has a flat screen that displays the total in large numbers that I can
see. The odd thing is that it then prints out the receipt behind
where I am standing to take the picture where we pay somene else. |
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Our butcher with Dawn.
We
never practiced our chicken parts in Spanish. This time Dawn was
holding
up her leg and pointing to various parts of it to explain what we
wanted. All and all, more fun than buying our chicken wrapped in
plastic at the Centrale Comerciale. |
| This is the Igriega
,"Y". the right side goes down to our house.
We have never taken a bus from here, bus they go fairly often. |
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Dawn in the orchard turning
away after returning the girls' ball which
came into our
orchard explaining who she was but not being able to understand their
names while she was watering the trees and arugula which Stephen was
thinning as he picks some for tonight's dinner with Rachel and Adam who
are coming over for dinner for the first time. |
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