Mexico, SM Week 8

Another Dog Day Afternoon:

A perfect place to start this week is with the dogs or rather the dog culture that seems to be stratified by class here in San Miguel. The upper class having the purebred male dogs while all other dogs without a pedigree or not sleeping on a feathered bed stem from much more humble beginnings.

Waking around the streets of the various colonial neighbourhoods that encompass San Miguel we've come across what we refer to as the Mexican street dog. Easily identified as a medium sized dog approximately 32 lbs. with a short cinnamon coloured coat. These dogs are mostly in groups sometimes sunning themselves on the cobblestones in what would appear to be the act of living the life.

 I believe that most of these dogs have been surviving on the street for many years thanks to the support of kind locals taking time to feed and care for them. 

We've been told that it's a common practice here for people to just open their doors and let their pets roam all day. When we see the same dog often enough in the same location we guess they belong to someone and are just out for a morning or afternoon stroll. I think the word loosely owned, might apply here, at night they are often enclosed in a courtyard or on a roof top acting as the families home alarm system. 

All in all the way we see it they're just canine folks trying to get by the best they can. 

When our landlady Carrie started to tell us about "doggie" nights well I I just couldn't wait to hear more. -naturally. She went on describing nights having a full or nearly full moon that somehow affects all dog's of San Miguel. Each dog having carefully worked out bit of choreography, some with their own scrap of melody having a more limited part while others with commanding voices perform long into the night all eloquent in their own way:-)

There is an animal shelter identified as " Sociedad Protectorate de Animals. This is a shelter that accepts an animal and will not euthanize it, rather waiting for it to be adopted to a great home.

Another is an organization that many expats are members of here called SAMM, this stands for Save A Mexican Mutt.- established to rescue, rehabilitate and adopt. 

Here's a Cheer! to the adoption of all these dogs onward to a much better places.

Okay well that's it for another week as I sign off as Sr. Don Guillermo will my lovely photo assistant Sara.Dona Suzanita provides the stunning photos to the dogs of Miguel. 

Mexico, SM Week 7

It's hard to imagine we are over halfway through our stay in San Miguel. With all our activities and daily adventures the time is going by very quickly and I'm sure the next 6 weeks will zoom by.

I have to admit, this past week was not packed with a lot of new discoveries.  Many people are suffering from colds and Bill is one of them. It's knocked the energy right out of him and so we took it easy staying close to home. That's not to say we didn't do a little real estate investigating. An agent drove us around to see some really expensive properties ($700,000 to a million) and then on another day some fixer uppers. Although we are not interested in buying, one particular home and garden had us stop for a minute. Price was under $300,000Cdn, had 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, (so lots of room for company) a large private lot with garden, fountain and even a patch of beautiful green grass. The downsides were that you definitely needed a car to get around and the train tracks ran 100 yards from the home. Even where we are now, 20km away from the tracks, we hear the whistle blow for a good 30 seconds in the middle of the night.

This house we saw on our real estate tour, not for sale though. It's called the "Egg House" and the artistic owner has designed the outside with mosaics made from bottles, plates, bowls and who knows what else. I can only imagine the inside and it's furnishings! Yikes!

Once a month on the 3rd Sunday, a Flea Market is held on the mountain, outside of town. Today we thought we'd check out the bargains, even made a trip to the Banco for extra cash. The place was very busy and even though Bill was tempted to buy some metal garden art made from engine parts, we left without a second look. Clothes and most items looked second hand and not as interesting as the Tuesday Market with the fresh veggies and fruit. Saved big $$$'s today!

There are over 600 destination weddings in San Miguel, mostly rich families from Mexico City. The city is widening the sidewalks in our area for one of the big hotel resorts. I can't wait to observe an actual processions but heard that the whole wedding party and guests will march down the sidewalk behind a mariachi band and a donkey while guests parade around the block drinking, singing and celebrating the bride and groom. Maybe the donkey carries the tequila!

I'm standing in the courtyard of a hotel in Centro. A small 1 bedroom apartment here rents for less than $500Cdn. for a month. Not a bad deal.

Step outside of the hotel and you're in the middle of town where the women are very tall!

Photos by Guillermo   Written and Edited by Susan and Guillermo

Mexico SM Week 6

I think we must do a better job for all our readers in describing the neighbourhood we're living in better know as Colonial San Antonio. 

For the record 85 % of the population is Mexican, ranging from crushingly poor to quite wealthy - all the expats falling somewhere in between. 

The charm of colonial style homes that surround us with their cantera stone doors and window surrounds, and moulded cornices, all combine to give way to a certain grace and sense of form - truly the 1750 look is sufficiently cutting edge here:-) it's in the arches and domes, the high ceilings, the fountains and courtyard gardens. 

Some might say it all looks a little bit like Europe on the cheap and though that might be somewhat true- the larger sense, sees this longstanding approach toward living in one's house with a relationship to nature - well at least my perspective, as gardener I believe this to be absolutely true.

In looking around our neighbourhood, there are certainly signs of much earlier inhabitants. Though the casita we're renting was built approximately ten years ago and there are indeed many others nearby of this same vintage. 

When we chose our location for this three month getaway we hoped to become a part of a community that offered us an experience different from home, one where we could feel connected. -and low and behold "Ladyfortune" smiled upon us. Note: that's not lady fortune below but she sure is cute don't you think?

So how well do we two snowbirds from the distant north really fit into this neighbourhood you might ask? Well in truth most Mexicans have already seen their fair share of foreigners, though perhaps we might appear a bit more exotic I'm thinking particularly with my exquisitely coiffured facial hair I've recently grown. In truth we seek only to be good neighbours, and most all the locals here I believe understand that. As posted a few weeks ago most every resident here is really friendly and informal towards us always with a quick smile and a few words -all of which is very positive - though we're seen as being very rich and as such we'll never truly fit in but that's okay. Perhaps some folks are observing us more closely with each days pass wondering amongst themselves just how much long I'm going to keep wear this same black t-shirt:-) for sure as you all know we seek only to demonstrate that we respect the Mexican people their culture and values. After all we've always found in our lifetime no matter what the country mutual respect and goodwill, approach always works out. Or maybe my inspiration for these comments come from watching Justin Trudeau this week on CNN. :-)

Hi Everyone, it's me, Sue, adding to Bill' blog and filling you in on our past weeks entertainment. As Jazz Week comes to a close, we attended our 3rd Jazz concert on Wednesday evening. Earlier in the day at the Instituto Allende's Lifelong Learning Program for was an Academic Course on "Madama Butterfly", which premiered in Milan in February 1904. The course focused on the story and different performances of this popular opera. Madam Butterfly the opera played here on Saturday, but unfortunately due to illness (ours not Puccini's) we were at home nursing colds. But, Saturday we felt much better and walked to the Playhouse Theater for a revival of Patsy Cline and Brenda Lee. Talk about stretching our musical appreciation eh?

Also this week, we met a real estate agent to view some properties for sale. Lucky for us they were way out of our price range! We weren't serious about buying anyway, just curious to see what was available. 

Churro, crueller like pastry sprinkled with sugar and can be filled with chocolate, yummy! With a hot chocolate to wash it down. Extreme pleasure!

I said to Bill, we seem to be doing a lot of walking but I don't feel I've lost weight! We walk to the grocery store, walk to the bakery, walk for ice cream!! 

To end our blog for this week, a picture of the sky at sunset taken last night from a park bench in the Jardin, center of town. HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Mexico, San Miguel Week 5

It's now February and here in San Miguel the tourists and expats are arriving in large numbers. As January weather is typically not great, a lot of people want to start their vacations now. But, this year the weather in January was above average in sunshine and warm days. February 1 brought clouds, cool temperatures and even a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. This past week was in the low 20's in the day and predictions are for higher temps, 26 hopefully, later in the week.

Fruits, boots and bras all for sale on Tuesday.

On Tuesdays there is an outdoor market on the mountain with a thousand stalls selling fruits, veggies, clothes, shoes and even hardware items. If it's not at this market, you probably don't need it. They have a wonderful way of not throwing out appliances or other items in Mexico. Everything is repairable or replaceable including broken parts of a food blender or just having your shoes resewn or resoled. Nothing is wasted and even the old cars are repaired, repainted(sometimes outside in the dust) and although we question the emission controls, the vehicles work and bounce along quite nicely on the narrow cobblestone roads. You probably wouldn't want to drive your expensive vehicles here. For one thing, many of our cars at home would be too large to maneuver or park on most streets in Centro. 

We attended an amazing documentary on Frida's life. It's almost impossible to visit a shop and not find something with a likeness of her. She is loved by all here for her talent as an artist and as a freedom fighter for Mexico and the people. 

El Charco, Botanical Garden

Although this park is 2 kilometres from town, we had to take a taxi as it would have been a climb only appreciated by ones training to summit Kilimanjaro. We did walk down though, and even that was a workout. The views were spectacular, and like all amazing vistas, hard to capture on a iPhone camera.

 After our dusty trail adventure, Bill needed his shoes shined. We pass this smiling gentleman when

we go to our salsa lessons. When he finished, he insisted that Bill take a picture of me sitting in his chair, pretending to brush my cloth sneakers.  How could I pass on such a happy moment.

There is always something happening in the Centro plaza every night and Friday was no exception. 27 young chefs in training were offering cheese and spicy pepper burritos wrapped in corn husks and a hot vanilla milk drink to everyone. Timing was perfect, we tried one for a snack and then headed to Don Taco Tequila, for you guessed it! Tacos and Tequila.....well, truthfully we had beer. But the tacos were good!

Sunday night and we just returned from a pot luck party. Wow! Regardless of who your team was, that was one exciting Super Bowl 51!